


passerine

by blujamas



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, But make it, Character Death, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Karlnapity, Sleepy Bois Inc. (Video Blogging RPF) - Freeform, because he has nothing better to do or so he says, mentions of techno's voices, no beta we die like lmanberg, techno decides to help, thats it thats the fic, tommy and wilbur are princes and technoblade is a feral god that philza picked up from the woods, villain!sapnap, wilbur also has voices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28755084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blujamas/pseuds/blujamas
Summary: “I understand. You heard the place you loved was in trouble, so you came back, but I don’t—I just—why didn’t you take me?” Here it was, at last. Catharsis, or something close to it. “I would have hunted them down with you, Philza, the people who did that to your town. I would have given you your vengeance on a silver platter. I would have given you the world.”Philza didn’t look guilty. He just looked tired. “I didn’t hunt them down, though.”//Or, that fic where Techno and Phil are old immortals, and Tommy and Wilbur are decidedly... not.
Relationships: Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 180
Kudos: 1116





	1. like a fox to a burrow (like an eagle to an aerie)

**Author's Note:**

> Technoblade and Philza are immortals. Tommy and Wilbur are... not. Angst ensues.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The voices led him to kingdoms and shires and towns—it didn’t matter what they offered him in return; the voices didn’t demand coin, they demanded blood. He fought for bold men and stupid men, greedy kings and starry-eyed rebels. He fought for armies doomed to fail and dragged them into the light of glory. He had lost count of how many allies he’d fought beside—after a time, their names and faces had faded into the recesses of his hazy memory.
> 
> And then there was the Angel of Death.
> 
> //
> 
> Or, eternity, empires and the emperors that rule them

He must have had a life before this. A mother, a father, a home. Maybe sisters, or brothers. But it had been so long— _too_ long—and now all he knew was this bloody game. His hands knew no other shape than fists curled tightly around a sword, swinging eternally, finding its mark through skin and bone.

They all tried to run, of course. They built walls and cowered in corners, but he always found them. Sometimes, they begged. Sometimes, they chose to jump from cliffs rather than face his reckoning. And sometimes, they stared back at him with eyes as empty as his own and welcomed death with open arms. Those were the ones he envied the most.

 _Technoblade never dies,_ they whispered around campfires and funeral pyres.

He prayed that that wasn’t true.

The voices led him to kingdoms and shires and towns—it didn’t matter what they offered him in return; the voices didn’t demand coin, they demanded blood. He fought for bold men and stupid men, greedy kings and starry-eyed rebels. He fought for armies doomed to fail and dragged them into the light of glory. He had lost count of how many allies he’d fought beside—after a time, their names and faces had faded into the recesses of his hazy memory.

And then there was the Angel of Death.

He was one of the very few people with a reputation that matched Technoblade’s. He’d heard of the angel through whispered stories and snatches of tavern gossip. _I heard he has obsidian wings,_ one patron would say to another over a cup of ale. _I heard he once massacred an entire army, all by himself. He makes even the Green God afraid._

Technoblade had begun to imagine a ruthless man—an immortal butcher with the same wretched grin as his. But Philza was not an avenging angel. He was just Philza.

They’d met by coincidence, in a land of ice and snow. It was barren, but they’d made quick work of it, together—first as allies and then as friends. Through it all, Philza had smiled instead of grinned, laughed instead of cackled. On calmer days, they’d wile away time with tea and chess, and silent meditations that quieted the screaming in Techno’s head, if only for a little while.

“You know,” Techno had said during one of their sparring matches (they had to stay in shape, of course, because peacetimes never lasted as long as people hoped), “the stories never talk about this side of you.”

Philza had paused, a small, amused smile on his face. “Oh?” he’d said. “What do the stories talk about, then?”

“They call you the Angel of Death.” Techno dug his heels in as Philza resumed an onslaught of blows with his dulled sword. “They said you leave a path of destruction in your wake that nothing— _ha_!” Techno parried and went on the offensive. “—that nothing is sacred to you.”

Their blades met. They pushed against each other, trying to gain an upper hand, and it was only because they were standing so close that Techno noticed the shift in Philza’s eyes: a momentary coldness that was as brutal as the blizzard raging outside. It was there and gone in an instant. Light returned, and Philza laughed as he pushed back against Techno’s sword.

“Stories are curious things,” Philza said as he swung again, barely giving Techno time to dodge. “Some of them are true…”

He moved so quickly. Techno could do nothing but stand there as Philza rushed him with a hilt to the ribs, knocking Techno backwards onto the training room floor. Techno scrambled to his knees, but Philza was already standing over him with his sword held high above his head, his eyes glimmering with an emotion Techno couldn’t place. For once in his immortal life, kneeling there in front of the first person he called _friend_ , Technoblade felt hunted.

And then Philza lowered his weapon. He smiled gently down at Techno—the soft smile Techno was used to—and offered Techno a gloved hand.

“… and some of them are not,” Philza finished. “So. Best of two out of three?”

“You’re a bastard,” Techno said playfully, even as the voices screamed, _run, run, run._ He took Philza’s offered hand and pulled himself up beside the man that he was sure could have cut him in two, no matter how dulled the sword’s edge was. As Philza patiently moved Techno through all the things he’d done wrong (small things like foot placement and his hilt grip being an inch off), Techno found it equal parts amusing and frightening that despite his eons of bloody fighting, it took only a few minutes of sparring for Philza to find flaws in his technique. But then again, Techno’s technique wasn’t particularly polished; it took only one brutal swing to fell most people. Something told him that Philza would be harder to kill than that.

They conquered nations, he and his golden-haired friend. They were bathed in glory, twin gods shining in the middle of a bloody fields. But as their empire grew, so did their enemies. They came in droves, day after day, and before long Techno had forgotten what peace tasted like. The days were long and the nights were longer; every flicker of movement was a spy in the shadows, every ally was a potential traitor, every word was a declaration of war. Their home had become a target for a thousand armies.

Through it all, his one constant was Philza—until he wasn’t. Technoblade simply looked up one day from a map detailing enemy lines and realized he’d been talking to empty air. He had no idea how long he’d been alone, sitting in a dusty library with stale tea untouched in the corner. He had no idea if Philza ever said he was leaving, or if he simply went as he arrived suddenly, swiftly, like a snowstorm.

Afterwards, there was hardly any point in maintaining the empire. The voices were getting bored, anyway. They wanted fresh blood. They wanted more stories. So Techno took his sword and his shield, and abandoned ship. He’d done it a million times before, but the thought of a chess board lying unused in a crumbling castle made him feeling something close to regret.

Technoblade wandered the world, quenching his thirst, trying to appease the voices. Neither of them were ever satisfied. No matter how much chaos he dealt, there was always more work to be done. So he worked. He had no idea for how long. All he remembered from that bloody time was a sense of unfulfillment, like a story had been left unfinished halfway through. Years. Decades. Maybe more. It hardly mattered.

In the end, he knew, it would all be the same. The world would end, and he would remain—always fighting, always alone.

* * *

He didn’t know what brought him to the kingdom in the first place. Did he really have to see it for himself? Was it simply to satiate his curiosity? Was he bored? Or did he hear of a kingdom untouched by the wars and petty grudges of its neighbors—keeping its peace and neutrality for a century—and take it as a challenge? Whatever it was, when Technoblade stood under the shadow of a gilded castle, watching its flags flutter lazily in the summer breeze, he felt a flicker of a once-familiar emotion stir in his heart. There was something about the cobblestone walls and towers rising towards the sky that reminded him of a different palace, somewhere cold and far away.

“Hello, stranger!” one of the guards at the gates called out. “You sightseeing?”

Technoblade paused at the man’s cheerful tone. Most of the guards that caught sight of Techno’s sword and blood-red cape were quick to draw their weapons, but aside from spears that seemed more decorative than threatening, the guards at the gates didn’t seem to be on guard at all. _Hubris_ , the voices said, _this is a kingdom of hubris._

“Perhaps,” Techno drawled, indulging the guard. “Although, I suppose I’m more curious about the inside, rather than the outside.”

“Why didn’t you just say so!” The guard beckoned Techno forwards. “The castle is always open for tourists. Just come right in!”

That was how Techno found himself walking leisurely down the halls of a castle that, under normal circumstances, he would have been storming, blades drawn. The guards did draw the line at his weaponry, and made him discard his swords at the door—as if Technoblade needed more than his hands (and sometimes, not even those) to wreak havoc. The castle’s laxness in security was disproportional to the opulence within: lush carpet softened Techno’s footsteps, elegant tapestries decorated the walls, flowers bloomed from vases as tall as him, and oil paintings in gilded frames. Paintings of solemn landscapes, of wild animals roaming a cultivated garden, of a dark-haired boy astride a white horse, a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth, and of the king—

Technoblade stopped under the painting, nestled between vases of irises. _Oh,_ he thought. _That’s why_. It wasn’t hubris making this kingdom think they were protected from everything. It was their king.

Rendered in paint and shadow, he looked just as Technoblade remembered, the years leaving no mark on his immortal face. He was standing behind a modest throne, his hand laid gently on the shoulder of a dark-haired woman that must be his queen. In the queen’s arms was a golden-haired toddler, sleeping peacefully. On the floor by her feet, with his legs crossed under him, was another child, older, with a gold circlet nestled in his brown curls.

“Wilby!”

A child’s shrill voice rang down the hall. Technoblade’s hand itched instinctively for his sword as he turned from the painting and found himself facing the very same boy from the painting.

 _The prince_. He was a tall, lean thing, his face still holding the faint traces of boyhood. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. In the painting, he’d been grinning, forever immortalized in delight. But here, he was staring, his dark eyes unnaturally focused, as if Techno was a particularly interesting book he was quietly picking apart in his head. Techno had seen that expression many times in the faces of wizened generals looking over battlefield arrangements.

“Hullo,” the prince said cautiously.

Technoblade found himself raising his hand in a small wave. “Hello.”

“Wilby! Wait for me!” the first voice called again, closer this time, and heralding the appearance of another child around the bend of the hallway. By his lavish attire and the small army of servants following fretfully after him, this could only be the younger prince, barely more than a babe in the painting but now a rather loud six-year-old.

The younger prince marched purposefully towards his older brother— _Wilby?_ —and clung decidedly to his side as they both stared up at Techno.

“And who are you?” the small prince said, in what he must have intended to be a threatening tone. But he sounded only like he really was: a child.

“A visitor,” said Techno, unsure of what he was meant to say now.

“Have you come to have an audience with our father?” the older prince asked in a decidedly more level tone.

“You can’t,” the younger prince snapped at once, tightening his hold on his older brother’s shirtfront. “Dad promised today was _our_ day with him, so you can just leave now, thank you!”

“Tommy, calm yourself.”

“But Wilbur, Dad said—”

“I know what Father said, Tommy.” The older prince—Wilbur, then, not Wilby; gods know what Techno would have said and done if the man had truly named his son _Wilby_ —was still staring at Techno like a vulture waiting for a dying animal to drop. “So, visitor, what is your business here?”

“I have no business,” Technoblade said. “I am visiting. Sightseeing. I’m a traveler.”

“First you are a visitor and now you are a traveler.” A smile tugged at the prince’s lips. “This exchange would be much easier if we knew your name.”

Technoblade glanced at the servants lining the hall behind the princes, clearly in earshot but dutifully maintaining the illusion of privacy. But if he knew their father at all, he’d know that most of those standing guard around his sons would be lethal killers—he just hadn’t anticipated the arrival of a god. What would they do if they heard his name? Would any of them recognize it? Would they know what it meant to have him stand before their young princes? How long would they last against him?

As he looked down at the two brothers, the voices whispered how fragile their necks must be. _Blood for the blood god,_ they chorused.

But instead, Techno found himself saying, “My name is—”

“Technoblade?”

Technoblade lifted his eyes from the young princes and found himself staring at their father.

“Philza?”

Philza stood at the end of the hallway, undoubtedly following the familiar cadence of his sons’ voices. He glanced at them now, still standing before Technoblade like unwitting sheep waiting for slaughter. But Philza’s eyes showed no fear. Instead, when he looked back at Techno, he only smiled, his face softening with a familiar relief—the expression of a man after a long, hard-fought war, seeing peace on the horizon at last.

“Old friend,” said Philza. “It’s nice to see you again.”

 _Traitor,_ the voices clamored, _traitor traitor traitor traitor—_

“Father!” Wilbur’s voice brought them back to reality; this was a different castle, a different time. “Do you know this stranger?”

“Well, obviously, Wilbur.” Tommy rolled his eyes. “Dad just said his name, didn’t he? Technoblade. That’s a dumb name.”

 _“Tommy!”_ Philza reprimanded, with no real heat behind his words. He drew closer to them, his steps quiet and even. The servants that had followed the two boys bowed in deference to their liege, despite him wearing no crown. In fact, he looked just as much as a traveler as Techno was—dressed in a simple trousers and shirt, perfect for blending in, perfect for a man on the run.

“It’s been a long time,” Philza said when he reached them, putting a gentle hand on the top of Tommy’s blond head. The boy arched towards the touch like a sunflower reaching towards the sun. Technoblade didn’t know if the move was calculated, or just a simple act of affection. Or, knowing Philza, both. “How have you been?”

“How have I been?” Techno repeated numbly, feeling a familiar chill creep into his bones. “Phil, I—”

“Actually,” Philza interrupted, before kneeling to look his boys in the eyes. “Wilbur, take your brother out to the garden for a bit, yeah?”

Wilbur pouted, for once looking like a boy his age. “But you said—”

“I know what I promised, and I keep my promises, don’t I?” Philza ruffled Wilbur’s hair and then Tommy’s. “I’ll join you in a moment. I just need to have a talk with Technoblade here.”

Wilbur stared at his father for a long moment, as if weighing the truth of his words, before nodding. He took his brother’s hand in his and began leading him away. “C’mon, Tommy,” he said. “Let’s play outside.”

“Technoblade’s still a dumb name,” Tommy muttered as they passed him, closely followed by their servants.

Wilbur met Technoblade’s eyes, just for a moment, before they were gone—down the hall, out of sight, leaving Technoblade alone with the king. Technoblade turned towards Philza, his old friend, and found the smile wiped clean from his face.

Philza gestured down the hall. “Walk with me?”

Technoblade could only nod, and follow Philza.

They were quiet as they walked. Techno remembered days like these during their time together, long days of companionable silence as they simply existed together. But there was something different this time. There was an edge. Techno could sense Philza sizing him up, tallying his hidden weapons, calculating his improvements. In turn, Techno mapped his escape routes as Philza led him through the halls, then up a sweeping flight of stairs. He did not want to expect violence from Philza, but he hadn’t expected to be left behind, either.

They reached a balcony overlooking a garden, where most of the flowers indoors undoubtedly came from. Wisteria and ivy grew around marble pillars; rosebushes and dandelions and carnations bloomed en masse at the foot of elaborate stone statues. At the center of the garden was a weeping willow, its branches providing shade for the two boys chasing each other across the grass. Their laughter echoed through the glade, reaching even Techno and their father high up on the balcony.

For a while, the two of them just watched the two princes. Wilbur was obviously faster than Tommy, but he slowed his pace just enough for his little brother to have fun chasing his heels.

“They’re a handful.” Philza’s soft tone turned Techno’s attention away from the princes. The king was almost smiling, but the hard glint in his eyes didn’t disappear. “Wilbur was a quieter, before Tommy was born. A little bookworm, holed up in his room all day. But I have a feeling you didn’t drop by for silly stories like that.” Philza turned towards Techno. “So, go ahead. Let me have it.”

Techno didn’t know what he was meant to feel. He didn’t know what he was meant to say. For years, he’d put Philza out of his mind, determined to forget that interlude of peace. He’d let the memories fester like untreated wounds, and now he thought he’d rather die of the infection than acknowledge out loud that it was real, that the pain was there at all.

“I didn’t mean to drop by,” Techno said eventually. “I didn’t know this place was yours. I can leave, if you—”

“No.” Philza shook his head. “Don’t leave. Truth be told, this reunion was inevitable. Or, I hoped it was.”

“How long have you been here?”

Philza considered. “How long has this kingdom been standing?”

“Phil, that’s—”

“I know. People like us aren’t meant to stay in one place for too long.” Philza sighed and turned back towards the horizon. He leaned his arms against the wrought-iron railings and looked out at the land beyond—the slope of the distant mountains, the kingdom that stretched on and on, unaware that their immortal king was all that stood between them and destruction. “I found a small town while I was traveling, made it something more. I told myself I would leave after a year, and then it became two years, three years, a decade. I _did_ leave eventually, before they figured out why their town mayor never aged. But then I found out, the moment I left…” Philza’s expression turned cold. “They were annihilated. I came back and everything, every _one_ had been burnt to the ground. It was just ashes. Everything I built… There were survivors, of course, and they blamed their leader for leaving, _of course_ —as they should. So I stayed. I built it back up again, from a small, decimated town to what you see today. As far as the people know, leadership has been passed on from one king to another who looks vaguely like him I’m sure the eldest of them have their rumors, but is it really so bad to be known?”

Technoblade didn’t realize, until Philza turned back to look at him, that he expected an answer to his question. But all Technoblade could say was, “Is this why you left me behind?”

“Techno—”

“I understand. You heard the place you loved was in trouble, so you came back, but I don’t—I just— _why didn’t you take me?”_ Here it was, at last. Catharsis, or something close to it. “I would have hunted them down with you, Philza, the people who did that to your town. I would have given you your vengeance on a silver platter. I would have given you the world.”

Philza didn’t look guilty. He just looked tired. “I didn’t hunt them down, though.”

_“What?”_

“The people who burned down my town. I didn’t hunt them down, as much as I wanted to. They were long gone by the time I arrived, and at that moment, my people needed a leader, not a hunter. And I didn’t bring you because—”

“Because I don’t know when to be either.”

They stood there, letting the words settle in the silence that stretched tauter and tauter like a rope around Technoblade’s neck.

 _Deny it,_ he wanted to shout, _tell me I’m wrong._

Philza did not.

“I don’t need to hear this from you,” Technoblade spat. A well of old hurt and anger, once dried up, began to fill anew. “Do your sons even know what you are? _Who_ you are? The Angel of Death, domesticated. What a farce.”

Philza stiffened. “You know not of which you speak.”

“I once saw you tear a man apart with your bare hands, and now you’re telling me about leadership? About kindness?”

“I said nothing of kindness. If I had completely renounced my ways, my kingdom would not be what it is today. Domesticated dogs still bite.”

Philza stepped towards him until they were eye-to-eye. Despite the accusations Techno hurled at him, despite their bloody history, Techno had never truly seen Philza angry. But he had a feeling that if he kept running down this road headfirst, he might find himself knowing the full extent of his old friend’s wrath. Philza’s eyes were hard as flint—one spark away from combustion.

Technoblade glanced down at the garden. Phil followed his gaze until they were both staring back at the two boys below, who’d ceased their playing to wonder at their father and the stranger.

They couldn’t have heard a thing of what Philza or Techno said, but Wilbur stood with his head cocked inquisitively to the side, as if he were turning over the words.

“ _Dad_!” Tommy shouted. “Are you almost finished?”

“Almost!” Philza called back. “I’ll be right down, kids!”

Tommy elbowed Wilbur and said something that made the other boy throw his head back in laughter. Then the two of them took off, back to their games, back to their honeyed childhood. When Technoblade turned to Phil again, the king’s expression had turned considerably softer. Techno could live another thousand years and still never understand how easily Philza could hide his fury.

“I wasn’t trying to… settle down,” Philza said, quietly now, as if he was imploring a child to stop a tantrum. His eyes were still on his sons below. “I was content, for a while, to watch the kingdom grow. But these mortals and their short, fitful lives… they draw you in, Technoblade. I used to think they were moths drawn to flame, doomed to catch fire for the most inconsequential things. We’ve seen their wars, you and I. We’ve fought them. We both know the things they do to each other.” Philza took hold of the balcony railings as if it was the only thing keeping him from floating away. “But over the years I’ve also learned of the things they do _for_ each other. Their lives will always be one year, one week, one day short, but it doesn’t seem to matter much to them. They live anyway. They love anyway. Forgive an old god for wanting a piece of that for himself.”

A late morning breeze passed through, carrying with it the scent of flowers and the shredded remains of Techno’s anguish. The fury was still there, and the feeling of a betrayal so grand it might never be bridged, but the exhaustion had begun to settle in. Techno was used to quick brawls and long hunts, but verbal altercation was not something he’d ever trained for—mostly because he had not cared to speak to anyone that mattered since… since forever, perhaps.

And maybe Philza had been tired, too, of their life before. Always fighting, never safe. And although Techno thought it was only a matter of time before this game of peace was over, he thought maybe he could start to understand why Phil took the chance. It was a foolish move, and Technoblade would scoff at it for the rest of their immortal lives, but it would not be the worst choice anyone had ever made. Technoblade had seen the worst, and this was barely a drop in the ocean of bad decisions.

Still. It was stupid. One look at Philza and Technoblade realized he must know it, too.

“Are they like you?” Techno asked at last, unsure what answer he was waiting for. “Your boys?”

Philza sighed. “I would not wish my fate on my worst enemy, least of all my own children.” His hands tightened around the railings. “They take after their mother. Mortal. _Good_ , in all ways. I thank every god that has ever existed for that. But sometimes…”

“Sometimes?” Techno prompted when the silence stretched too long.

Philza’s jaw clenched. “It’s Wilbur. He speaks of voices—”

“ _Voices_?”

Philza met Techno’s eyes. A conversation from lifetimes ago replayed in Techno’s mind—a moment of vulnerability in a castle not so different from this one, where he had spilled his secrets as easily as he spilled blood. _The voices, Phil, they demand blood_. There was a world’s worth of agony in Philza’s stare, a burden only understood by a parent fearing for a child.

“I am glad he is not like me,” Philza said. “But sometimes I fear he is growing more and more like _you_.”

Techno’s breath hitched in his throat. He resisted the urge to look down again, to search the grass for the boy with the ancient eyes.

The voices began to sing.

 _Not alone,_ they said. _Not alone, not alone, not alone—_

“No,” Techno said, curling his hands into fists and digging his nails into flesh until they drew blood—his daily penance. “He is but a _child_.”

Techno paused. What was he talking about? What did it matter what Wilbur was? What was this sudden ache in his chest, something telling of a far deeper wound, an older affliction? He did not know this boy. He should not care. He _did_ not care.

But then Philza seized him by the wrist, as if he knew Techno was about to take off running, and forced him to meet his tortured gaze.

“That is why I had hoped you would come. Truth be told, I was very close to looking for you myself. I cannot do this by myself, Technoblade, as much as I want to. You’re the only one—”

“You want my help,” Techno said dully. “ _My_ help, after you abandoned me. After you denounced my ways and called me a monster.”

Philza flinched. “I would _never_ call you that, my friend.”

 _Friend._ The word that Technoblade had only truly understood in the days of snow and sweet tea.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Technoblade said quietly. “I don’t owe that—that _child_ anything.”

“I know.”

“And I have better things to do with my time.”

“I know.”

“After all you did, I shouldn’t even be listening to you right now. I should just leave.”

“I _know_ , Techno, I know.”

And then Philza did something Technoblade would never, in a hundred or a million years, have expected him to do. He _kneeled_. Philza, once-emperor, presently king, Angel of Death, kneeled before Technoblade, grasping pathetically at his cloak, his golden hair bowed. The voices were a chorus of a disgust and disdain— _oh, how the mighty have fallen—_ and when Philza spoke again, his voice wavered.

“I am sorry, truly, for leaving. But I am asking you, _begging_ you, to do this for me. For my son. For the friendship that we once shared, Techno. Please. _Please_. I do not know how much time the gods will give us.”

“What will you have me do?” Techno demanded, his own voice fraying at the edges. “What do you expect from me, Phil?”

Philza looked up at him, his face a study in agony. “Stay. Stay and help, as much as you can. And together, maybe we can help you, as well.”

The voices paused. Just for a moment. Just for a breath, as they all considered the weight of Philza’s words. And, gods, that silence—however brief, however fleeting—was the sweetest thing Technoblade had ever heard.

 _We can help you._ What did that mean, exactly? What would that entail?

Technoblade didn’t know, and didn’t care. He’d come here in search of a kingdom of peace, and he’d found it. _Forgive an old god for wanting a piece of that for himself_ , Philza had said. And what was peace if not the silence? Was that not freedom, at last?

So as the voices began to chant anew, an immortal hunter offered an immortal king his hand. The sun climbed higher towards the heart of the sky as Technoblade pulled Philza to his feet, and they were on equal ground once more.

He had no idea what he was doing. But there was no true alternative. So Technoblade met his old friend’s gaze and said, “Alright. You and me, one more time.”


	2. like carillon bells (the house of Augustus rings)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You look at him like you look at me, and I don’t know what to make of that.”
> 
> Father’s gaze pinned Wilbur to his seat, even more than the soreness of his body did. Even Tommy had fallen quiet, sensing –in the way that younger siblings do—that his brother was in the sort of trouble that required absolute silence.
> 
> “And how do I look at you, Wil?” Father asked.
> 
> //
> 
> Or, flowers, family and the futility of trying to outrun fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's trigger warnings are as follows:  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> Panic attacks, death.

Wilbur did not know what to make of the visitor. The traveler. Whatever he was.

Father had come down to the garden with him, and Wilbur could tell he was sad. He didn’t know if the visitor had been the cause, or something else. Someone else.

“A formal introduction is in order,” Father had told Wilbur and Tommy. “This is Technoblade. An old friend. He’ll be tutoring you for a while, Wilbur.”

Wilbur had stared up at the man, seeing him in the soft morning light at last. _Technoblade_. Tommy was right—it was a pretty dumb name. And one Wilbur had heard before, though he wasn’t sure where.

He was tall and lean, and most likely a few years older than Wilbur. He was dressed like him, too, with poofy sleeves that Tommy always said made him look like an old man. An emerald earring hung from Technoblade’s left ear, similar to the one that Father wore on a golden chain around his neck, tucked secretively under his dress shirt. Was he some sort of royalty, too, then? Some foreign prince or a distant cousin that Father never bothered to tell Wilbur about? Father kept many secrets; this may just be one of a million.

Technoblade had taken one look at Wilbur, nodded, and then said, “We’ll start at dawn,” before leaving them.

Wilbur had stared after him, perplexed. “What…?”

Father had struggled to keep a smile off his face. “That’s Techno for you.”

Now they were sitting in the dining hall, each to their own thoughts—except Tommy, whose thoughts must always come out of his mouth, regardless of who was or wasn’t listening.

“—and Wilbur tripped me but I got up very quickly, you saw that didn’t you, Dad? Dad? Didn’t you?”

“I saw, I saw,” Father said distractedly. He was staring down at his half-eaten plate as if it held the secrets of the universe. Wilbur assumed he was only doing it so he wouldn’t be staring at Mother’s empty seat.

She’d been taking more and more of her meals in their bedroom. Tommy hadn’t noticed yet, but Wilbur did. Wilbur always did.

“And this Techno fellow, he’s a bit of an odd one, isn’t he? Will he be training me, too? Will I have to wake up at dawn like Wilbur?”

Wilbur grimaced. “Please don’t remind me, Tommy.”

Tommy stuck his tongue out at him from across the table. “It’s not like you have any other plans. I’m sure you’ll just be staying up reading again.” He gestured dramatically to himself. “I, for one, would _love_ to be under the tutelage of Mister Technoblade, stupid as his name may be.”

The two of them turned to their father—one with starry-eyed expectation, the other with morbid curiosity.

Father sighed fondly before ruffling Tommy’s hair. “Sorry, little bud. Maybe we can find someone else for you. I’m sure the Captain would be willing to—”

“But I want the _Blade_ ,” Tommy whined.

Wilbur snorted. “Yeah, as if you could even wake up early enough. You’ll still be in bed by noon, I can see it now.”

Father gave Wilbur a cheeky grin he only reserved for his eldest son. “Tell you what, Tommy, if you can wake up with Wilbur, then you can watch him train with Techno.”

“ _Truly?”_ Tommy kicked back from the table, nearly upsetting Father’s glass of wine. “Good night, then! Early to bed, early to the prize, as they always say!”

“Who says that?” Wilbur said, but Tommy had already gone off, leaving Wilbur with their father and the silence.

For a while, the only sound were utensils scraping against plates and Wilbur’s heartbeat in his ears. He would never admit it to Tommy or anyone, but his relationship with Father was always better with his brother around. It wasn’t that Wilbur didn’t love his father, or that he thought his father didn’t love him. Wilbur couldn’t remember it happening, but somewhere along the way of studying warfare and politics, of staring up at the throne that would one day be his, of learning how to be a prince, he’d forgotten how to be a son.

And sometimes, when Father thought he couldn’t see, Father would look at him with a bottomless grief, like he was mourning something already lost.

 _It should be Tommy,_ Wilbur had thought. Sunny Tommy, who managed to charm everyone he met, in spite of—or perhaps because of—his loud disposition. Not him. Not when Father looked at him like that.

Wilbur swallowed the last of his dinner and was set to go, if not for his father speaking once more.

“Wilbur?”

“Yes, Father?”

Father leaned against his hand as he considered Wilbur. “Do you want me to be there for you tomorrow?”

Wilbur scoffed halfheartedly. “I’m not a child, Father.”

“Of course,” Father said. “But Technoblade is still a stranger to you.”

Wilbur pursed his lips as he thought about his father’s words. “Do you trust him?”

“Yes,” Father replied at once.

Wilbur nodded. “Then I trust him.”

Father stared at him for a long minute, and then nodded. There was nothing else to say, it seemed, and so Wilbur left, leaving his father to the quiet.

* * *

Tommy’s door was firmly shut by the time Wilbur arrived at their sleeping quarters. Wilbur’s own door stood ajar, waiting. Moonlight spilled from the arched windows, painting everything in silver: the bed littered with half-finished books, and the desk bearing scars from Wilbur’s manifold frustrations in writing music for the guitar that sat discarded on the floor. Mother had given him that guitar for his tenth birthday. He used to play lullabies (or spooky songs, when he was in the mood for older-brother mischief) for Tommy, before Tommy decided he was a big man, and moved out to the bedroom across the hall.

His body felt heavy with thoughts. Technoblade—the boy who looked not much older than him, now tasked at tutoring him at… at _what_? Father had not been forthcoming with that, amongst other things.

With a sigh, Wilbur grabbed the guitar from the floor and dragged it with him to the window. As he plucked idly at the strings, he gazed out at the horizon beyond the glass: the sprawling lawns of the castle ending at the foreboding gates, and then after that, his kingdom. His birthright.

He played a single discordant chord. Nothing had come easily to him, recently. Music, literature, conversation—everything, all at once, had become taxing. Even laughing with his brother felt like a chore.

Wilbur’s fingers stilled on what was undoubtedly going to be another bad note. Something was moving, down on the lawn. He squinted at the figure until it came into sharper focus.

“Technoblade?”

Wilbur pressed his face closer to the glass, just to make sure his eyes had not deceived him. There were many people in the kingdom with pink hair, but perhaps fewer who also moved with the lethal grace of a python.

Technoblade walked across the lawn, and disappeared past the gates without a glance back. It wasn’t until his breaths fogged up the window completely that Wilbur realized he was hyperventilating. He pulled away from the glass and stumbled over his guitar on his way to his bed. He pulled the covers over himself, as if the darkness would dampen his thoughts.

 _Where is he going?_ followed by _Will he come back? Will he come back? Will he come back? Will he—_

* * *

“You’re late.”

Wilbur blinked in the dim sunlight barely breaking through the horizon. “Wha…?”

He blinked some more until he finally recognized his surroundings: the smooth marble floor, the four columns sculpted like gods bearing up the flat roof, ivy following over the roof’s edge like a waterfall, curtaining them off from the rest of the garden. This was the training pavilion—Father’s personal training area, where he attempted to teach Wilbur fencing before it became clear that weaponry was not to be Wilbur’s forte.

“It’s alright, son,” Father had said, carefully tending to the cut on Wilbur’s leg from his own rapier. “Kings don’t really need to know how to fight. That’s what armies are for.” Father had sounded angry as he said this, but Wilbur somehow knew it wasn’t because of him.

“But _you_ know how.” Wilbur had pouted, dutifully trying to hold back tears as Father applied stinging herbs to his wound.

“Well,” said Father, “that’s different.”

“Different how?”

“Just different.” Father finished tying the bandages around Wilbur’s leg and smiled at him. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

He never had.

But it wasn’t Father standing before Wilbur today.

“Well?” Technoblade said, gesturing to the heavy chest in the corner. “We’re burning daylight here, little prince. Hurry up.”

Wilbur blinked again. “Sorry, but how did I…?”

Technoblade stared at him quietly as they both waited for Wilbur to finish his sentence. _His eyes are red,_ Wilbur noted distantly, even as he struggled to remember anything else. He could not recall falling asleep, or waking up, or walking down to meet his new tutor for their first lesson.

“Well?” Technoblade prodded.

Wilbur shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. What are we, um, learning today?”

Technoblade cocked his head to the side, unimpressed. His hair had been pulled into a braid so tight that it hurt Wilbur’s scalp by proxy. “Philza said you were crap at fencing.”

Wilbur grimaced as he walked over to the chest, kneeling to filter through its contents. “That’s one way of saying it.” He picked up one of the swords, and turned to Technoblade, who’d apparently brought his own weapon: a wicked-looking broadsword with a ruby-encrusted hilt. “I’m a bit better at long-ranged weapons, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Technoblade snorted. “Get into position.”

Wilbur did.

“That’s not correct.”

Wilbur sighed. “I _told_ you—”

Technoblade walked closer to Wilbur until they were eye-to-eye. Wilbur was a few inches taller than him, he realized, at least until Technoblade knocked him flat on his back with a sudden blow to the stomach. The air left Wilbur’s lungs in a rush. He blinked lazily up at the ceiling for a moment, before the indignation set in.

He leaned himself against his elbows and glared at his tutor, who was looking more and more unimpressed.

“You could have withstood that if you were in the correct position,” Technoblade drawled.

“You could’ve warned me!” Wilbur spat, clambering to his feet.

“ _Oh,_ is that how a fight goes, Your Highness?” Technoblade mocked. “Alright, then, if it pleases you, Your Princeliness, I shall be striking your shoulder with the flat of my blade next.”

_“What?”_

Quicker than a breath, Technoblade did just that. Wilbur landed on his side, his own weapon flying out of his hands.

Technoblade laughed with no real warmth. “I even warned you that time and I _still_ knocked you over. Gods, you’re pathetic.”

Wilbur wanted to say, _I’m calling my father,_ but caught himself before he could give that ammunition to the smug bastard. Instead, he got shakily to his feet, his entire body smarting from the impact with the floor, and picked his rapier up from the ground.

He got into position again. Technoblade raised one eyebrow.

“This would go faster if you told me what’s wrong with it,” Wilbur grumbled.

“This would go even faster if you didn’t fumble your basics,” Technoblade retorted.

“Shut up.”

“Strong demands from a boy who can’t even get his left foot placed properly.”

Wilbur considered his words. He moved his left foot inch by inch, watching Technoblade until the man finally gave a curt nod. Wilbur sighed.

“See? That wasn’t— _oh my gods_.” Wilbur barely had time to throw up his rapier before Technoblade crashed his sword against it. Steel hissed. Wilbur’s knees buckled under Technoblade’s surprising strength—it felt like having an entire house collapse on him, and if he fell, he’d be crushed.

Technoblade fell back, leaving Wilbur with his heart hammering in his chest.

“What was that?!” Wilbur demanded. “You could have killed me that time!”

“I could have killed you multiple times since you first walked in here.” Technoblade gestured for him to get into position. _Again, again, again._ “Never let your guard down, Your Highness. Always assume the enemy is planning to strike.”

“What even is the point of this?” Wilbur asked. “The kingdom has been at peace for gods know how long. I don’t need to risk my neck for a skill that doesn’t even matter.”

Technoblade considered him for a long moment, the silence between them only broken by the beginnings of birdsong as the rest of the world finally began to wake.

“And what will you do when it does matter?” Technoblade asked.

“It never will—”

“But let’s say it will,” Technoblade interrupted, taking a step towards Wilbur, his red eyes never once leaving the prince’s face. “Let’s say, _hypothetically_ , that a foreign army attacks at this very moment. Your father isn’t here to help. Nobody’s here to help. It’s just you. Do you just stand there and get torn apart by the mob? Will you run like a coward and leave your kingdom to the wolves?”

Wilbur flinched. “That’s not…”

“Or not even an army. Consider, if you will, just one very smart, very _angry_ person, and they’ve got your brother.” Technoblade smirked at whatever expression was on Wilbur’s face. “That’s all it takes, you know, to kill a kingdom—a single person who knows your weak spots. So what you need to do is get rid of them. The weak spots, I mean. This kingdom is only impenetrable because Philza has long ago gotten rid of every vulnerability. So what happens when _you_ take the throne?”

“That’s not true,” Wilbur said quietly, standing in the downpour of Technoblade’s words. “My father—he does have vulnerabilities. He has Mother. Tommy.” _Me._

“But he has the power to protect them,” Technoblade replied. “And you don’t. That’s the difference.”

The sun had climbed higher into the sky, painting everything in gold. Through the gaps in the ivy, the warm light shone on Wilbur’s skin, warming him from the inside out. He imagined the light seeping into his skin, into his bones, into the cracks of his soul until he could be made whole again—a boy of sunlight, like Tommy. He wanted the sun to burn away the tiredness, the sadness, the thoughts. He wanted the sun to burn Technoblade, too, with his harsh words made harsher by their truth.

Wilbur took a shaky breath, letting the fresh air in and trapping it in his lungs for as long as he could. Then he let it out.

He glared at Technoblade, then got into position.

“Fine,” he spat. “Do your worst.”

* * *

“Wilby, you look like trash,” Tommy said brightly over a plate of eggs.

“Tommy,” Father scolded.

“No, no,” Technoblade mumbled through a mouthful of meat. “The boy is right, Phil, _Wilby_ does look like trash.”

Wilbur groaned at their remarks—and then groaned some more when the movement made his ribs feel like they were cracking apart. Bruises were already starting to form up and down his arms from the various times Technoblade had knocked him to the floor. He couldn’t even reach for his utensils without pain lacing up his side, and so his breakfast remained tantalizingly out of reach right in front of him.

Tommy’s initial annoyance at sleeping in and “missing the Blade in action” was only matched by his absolute delight at seeing his older brother so battered, and then exceeded by his excitement when Father invited Technoblade for breakfast to recount how terribly Wilbur had performed. It was to track his progress, or some sort of excuse like that, though Wilbur guessed Father just wanted to stop Technoblade from disappearing wherever he goes off to—like last night.

“Did he cry?” Tommy demanded, practically vibrating off his chair.

Technoblade, seated next to him, cut another piece of meat and chewed ponderously on it before answering, “Almost.”

 _“Wicked,”_ Tommy breathed.

Father glanced at Wilbur worriedly, taking in his bruises. “Techno, maybe next time, you can go easy a bit?”

“No,” Wilbur said hurriedly, wincing when his sore limbs protested. “ _No_. I told him to not hold back.”

Father raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that.”

“No, really, I need this, Father,” Wilbur insisted. His legs felt like lead and some of his bones were definitely misplaced, but by the end of their five-hour session, he’d learned where to strike to kill and where to strike to incapacitate, how to block attacks as much as deal them, and how to fight off stronger opponents—“Which, for you, would be all of them,” Technoblade had said as he righted Wilbur’s grip on his rapier.

“Let the boy bruise a little, Phil,” Technoblade said now, downing a glass of wine. “It’s good practice. Good distraction, too.”

_Distraction?_

Wilbur looked to his father, but he was busy trying to force a bowl of vegetables on Tommy. When he looked again, Wilbur found himself meeting eyes with Technoblade.

The other boy was considering him at length. Wilbur had caught sight of that expression multiple times in the past five hours. Like Technoblade was _inspecting_ him—less with the scrutiny of a teacher, and more with the intense focus of a surgeon trying not to make the wrong cut.

“What?” Wilbur finally asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Yes. Defeat.”

Wilbur resisted the urge to stick his tongue out, like Tommy undoubtedly would have done. “You are a very rude guest.”

“You are a very weak prince.”

“I don’t see what my physical prowess—”

“Or lack thereof,” Technoblade inserted.

“—has to do with you being such a pissy bastard,” Wilbur finished hotly.

“Wilbur!” Father said, swiveling to face his oldest son. “Cursing? In front of your baby brother? I taught you better manners than that.”

“I am not a _baby,_ ” Tommy protested. “And what does piss—”

“I think that’s my cue to go,” Technoblade interrupted suddenly, rising from his seat.

“To where?” Father asked.

“None of your business, actually,” Technoblade replied, not flippantly or arrogantly, just stating a fact.

Father’s grip tightened infinitesimally on his spoon. “I think it _is_ my business, if you’re living in my castle.”

Technoblade shrugged. “Try and stop me, then.”

They stared each other down—the king and his visitor. Red eyes on blue. A moment passed. Then another. Father did not move.

“That’s what I thought,” Technoblade scoffed, and then disappeared in a whirl of fur and scarlet silk.

Wilbur glanced at Father, trying to gauge his reaction. Father had never seemed truly old, but in that moment, it felt like Wilbur was watching him age a thousand years per second.

“Who is he, really?” Wilbur asked, before he could lose the nerve.

Father blinked slowly, as if coming out of a dream. “An old friend, I told you.”

“From when? He can’t be that old of a friend—he’s just a teenager. When did you meet him?” Wilbur repeated.

Father pursed and unpursed his lips like he was trying to swallow something rancid. “Why does it matter, Wilbur?”

“Because you look at him like you look at me, and I don’t know what to make of that.”

Father’s gaze pinned Wilbur to his seat, even more than the soreness of his body did. Even Tommy had fallen quiet, sensing –in the way that younger siblings do—that his brother was in the sort of trouble that required absolute silence.

“And how do I look at you, Wil?” Father asked.

_Like I disappoint you. Like I did something to hurt you and you’re sad I can’t remember what._

“It doesn’t matter.” Wilbur mustered what was left of his strength and rose from his seat. “My other non-violent tutors are waiting. If you’ll excuse me, Father. Tommy.”

Tommy stared back at him, wide-eyed.

Father only sighed. “It’s a long story, Wilbur,” he said, with infinite patience. Wilbur would have preferred he screamed. “And not one you’re ready to hear. Either of you,” he added, giving Tommy a reassuring smile. “But one day, I’ll—”

“Sure.” Wilbur turned from them, and began to walk away. “ _One day_. Whenever that is.”

He expected a rebuttal. Or perhaps _wanted_ one.

But, as always, there was nothing left to say.

* * *

They carried on like that for months more.

Every morning, Wilbur would pull himself out of bed and head down to the gardens, where Technoblade would always be waiting—even after the times he threatened to leave, and the times that it looked like he was truly going to. Technoblade would walk Wilbur through his stances and correct them by demonstrating how exactly it could be turned against him. The tutor was never fully pleased, but eventually they made their way through the weapons in the chest and had to request for more to practice with: spears and knives and axes. They never spoke beyond the usual instructions, and Wilbur never complained again when—a few weeks in—he almost, _almost_ , disarmed Technoblade during a sparring session with the rapier, before Technoblade inevitably knocked him over again.

“I almost got you!” Wilbur had grinned, even as he picked himself up from the floor.

“ _Almost_ won’t cut it on the battlefield, princeling,” Technoblade had said with a roll of his eyes. “And I was going easy on you.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Technoblade snorted. “I don’t sleep.”

Wilbur was still debating whether he’d been joking or not.

Eventually, Tommy’s jealousy outweighed his drowsiness, and he begun to follow Wilbur to the training pavilion, yawning all the way, with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders and trailing in the dewy grass. He’d sit on the floor, shouting unhelpful advice and laughing at his brother’s failures.

“Technoblade,” the younger prince had said at one point. “Will you train me alongside Wilbur?”

Technoblade had eyed Tommy and his blanket, looking so serious that Wilbur thought he might actually be sizing his little brother up. “Well, you do have similar skill levels—”

 _“Hey.”_ Wilbur tossed a stray pebble at Technoblade’s head. It bounced harmlessly off his braided hair.

“I want to be strong like you,” Tommy said, uncharacteristically solemn as he stared up at the older boys. “And like dad.” He raised his gangly arms up to them. “Look at these, Technoblade. They’re pulsing with potential.”

Technoblade arched an eyebrow at him, an amused smile tugging at his lips. “Little prince, you are years away yet from needing to learn anything. Your brother’s training so you don’t have to. Understood?”

Tommy pouted, but nodded. Wilbur stared at him, feeling as if he’d just witnessed the taming of a wild beast. He glanced at Technoblade, who had walked over to one corner of the pavilion to stretch.

“How’d you get Tommy to not kick and scream like he does when he doesn’t get what he wants from _me_?” Wilbur called out.

“I don’t kick and _scream_ ,” Tommy huffed. “I let out a manly _whine_.”

“It’s probably because he respects me and not you,” Technoblade replied curtly.

Wilbur whirled on his brother. “Is that true?” he demanded, with faux hurt.

Tommy shrugged. “I’d respect you more if you weren’t reading all the time.”

“I’m not reading _now_ ,” Wilbur said, at the same time Technoblade called, “I know how to read, too, just to put it out there.”

Afterwards, they would eat breakfast together. Sometimes, it would just be Wilbur, Technoblade and Tommy, going over the practice session—Technoblade, with his dry corrections and Tommy with his enthusiastic, albeit often inaccurate, input. But often Father would join them, and Wilbur would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit validated whenever Technoblade praised—or as close as the man could get to praise—his improvements in front of his father.

Mother had taken to waking late, and took her breakfast in her room. They’d visit her there, Wilbur and Tommy, but she’d often be too tired to speak at all. Tommy tried to introduce Technoblade to her once, but she was already asleep again by the time they arrived at her bedchambers.

“Probably for the best,” Technoblade had said. “I’ve been told I don’t make great first impressions with mothers, mostly because I met them after I’d just slaughtered their children.”

“Please reserve the morbid jokes for after Tommy’s gone to bed, Technoblade,” Wilbur said.

“What does _slaughtered_ mean?” Tommy asked.

“I tickled them,” Technoblade said.

“Oh.”

“To death.”

_“Oh.”_

Wilbur had hit Technoblade on the shoulder, but he was laughing, too.

Three months in, Technoblade finally relented to letting Wilbur practice long-ranged weapons, which turned out not to be his forte after all. The session had to stop after Wilbur almost took Tommy’s eyes out with an arrow. Tommy was inconsolable.

“Please don’t tell Father,” Wilbur begged as he kneeled in front of his wailing brother, wiping Tommy’s cheeks as fast as the tears came. “It was an accident, Tommy.”

Technoblade was cackling, leaning against one of the pavilion’s sculpted pillars. “You should see your face!” he managed to wheeze out between his guffaws. “Oh, gods, this is too hilarious—”

Wilbur turned to glare at him. “You _do_ know, if he tells Father, that it means _you’re_ in trouble, too?”

Technoblade snorted. “I’m not scared of your father.”

There it was again. The arrogant dismissal, as if Father were nothing to him. Wilbur clenched his jaw to keep the barbed remarks from spilling.

Tommy was still wailing, his tiny face turning red from the effort.

“Okay,” Technoblade said after a long moment. “That’s getting annoying now. Stop.”

Tommy didn’t.

“Tommy, _stop_ ,” Technoblade said more loudly.

Tommy stopped, only to wipe his nose on his sleeve, hiccup, and then wail again.

“What’s wrong with him? That usually works,” Technoblade grumbled, stalking closer to them with the caution of a hunter approaching a wild animal.

“Welcome to the world of big brotherhood,” Wilbur replied bitterly, still wiping gently at Tommy’s face. “We hope you enjoy your stay, but most likely you will suffer.”

Technoblade came to kneel beside Wilbur.

“Tommy,” Technoblade demanded. “That is very irritating, what you are doing. Please quieten down.”

Tommy responded by crying louder.

“Oh, for the love of—What will it take for you to shut up? I’ll do anything at this point.”

The crying stopped immediately.

“Oh, gods.” Wilbur put his face in his hands. “You’re not supposed to say that, Techno. You’re _never supposed to say that!”_

“What? What?” Technoblade demanded, panic seeping into his voice for the first time since Wilbur met him. “What did I do? _What the hell did I do?”_

Tommy sniffled. “You said you’ll do… anything?”

Realization dawned on Technoblade’s face. “Well, not _anything_ , per se…”

Tommy’s eyes began to water once more.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Technoblade ran his hands across his face in frustration. “ _Fine._ One thing, and you’ll shut up forever.”

“I want to braid your hair,” Tommy said at once.

Technoblade blinked. “What?”

 _“What?”_ Wilbur echoed. “You once got me to let you ride me like a pony across the castle, and you ask him to let you _braid his hair?_ ”

Tommy nodded with all the solemnity of a judge announcing someone’s death sentence. Wilbur and Technoblade exchanged glances—Technoblade, one of bewilderment, and Wilbur, one of utmost betrayal.

That was how they found themselves wasting the morning away, sitting together on the damp grass. Wilbur leaned back on his hands and raised his face to the sun, letting the light settle against his skin. He could hear Tommy scurrying around, gathering flowers, as the spring breeze blew through the garden.

For a moment, all Wilbur could feel was a sudden, all-consuming affection—not for anything in particular. For _everything_. For the brilliant spinning wheel in the sky turning everything into burnished gold. For the soft dirt beneath his hands. For the air in his lungs and the pollen on his tongue. For the distant sound of his brother’s footsteps. For the boy sitting beside him that, against all odds, Wilbur found he might actually like beyond mere tolerance. For the levity that had started to chase away the more exhausting thoughts.

He cracked one eye open and found Technoblade staring at him again, with that all-too-serious look.

“What?” Wilbur asked. “Can’t a man be glad that he’s not getting tossed around for one morning?”

Technoblade scoffed. “Don’t discredit my teaching skills like that. You’ve been getting tossed around less and less these days.”

“Was that meant to be a compliment?”

“None of my compliments will ever be meant. They will be passive-aggressive, at best. Openly hostile, at worst.”

“Oh, of course, we have to pry positive affirmation from your cold dead hands, is that it?”

“Only way you’ll earn it,” Technoblade confirmed.

They went silent as another breeze blew past them, blowing Technoblade’s unbound hair across his face.

Then, before Wilbur could think twice about it, he said, “What did you mean, before, when you told Father our tutoring sessions were a distraction? A distraction from what?”

Technoblade’s expression darkened for a fraction of a second before he schooled it into careful neutrality. He shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, growing boy like you, you’re meant to have hobbies beyond… whatever you were doing before.”

“I _read_ ,” Wilbur said. “And played music. That was a sufficient distraction, I think.”

“Not according to Philza.”

“Why do you talk like that, by the way?” Wilbur shifted to look Technoblade squarely in the eyes. “You call the king _Philza_ , which I can excuse because you’re… well, _you_. But Father also calls you an old friend, and I’ve asked Mother—because Father tells Mother everything—but she never heard of you before. And you all these things about weapons and warfare. Far too much.”

“You’re from a kingdom that has enjoyed peace for decades, princeling,” Technoblade said, with a world’s worth of exhaustion in his voice. “Beyond those walls, it’s different. Knowing war young is not entirely uncommon. Kids just grow faster out there. They have to.”

Wilbur took fistfuls of grass and threw it at Technoblade’s face. Technoblade, unamused, simply blew the grass from his face.

“Very mature, Your Highness,” Technoblade said dryly.

“You were being all sad again,” Wilbur muttered, pulling his knees up to his chin. He looked up just as Tommy came toddling towards them, his arms a burst of color—yellow alstroemerias, white daisies, purple malvas, and freesias the color of Technoblade’s hair.

“Oh, gods,” Technoblade groaned as Tommy dumped his collection before them proudly.

Tommy grinned as he kneeled behind Technoblade. “Dad used to braid Mama’s hair all the time, before she got tired. He taught me how.”

Technoblade turned towards Wilbur. “Should I be worried?”

“Very,” Wilbur said sagely. “At least he doesn’t have scissors this time,” he added, recalling a particularly incensed butler who’d foolishly offered himself to be Tommy’s training dummy last year, and ended up with less hair than he bargained for.

Tommy turned Technoblade’s head away from Wilbur. “Hold still!” he ordered, beginning to take handfuls of Technoblade’s hair, tugging them into place.

“Ow!” Technoblade said after a particularly harsh pull.

“Sorry,” Tommy said cheerfully, and began to braid in earnest.

Wilbur sat back and watched them in silence, his ferocious tutor and his even more ferocious younger brother. The sunlight seemed to catch in the tangles of Tommy’s hair, making it shine like a golden halo. Wilbur had never seen anyone as focused as Tommy was in that moment, working through Technoblade’s hair, pausing only to debate on what flowers should go where. And Technoblade, for his part, did not move at all, or let out so much as a word of complaint, even when Tommy took time to educate them all on what exactly each flower meant.

 _I could write a song about this,_ Wilbur mused, and then marveled at the thought. It was as if a block he’d been carrying for years lifted, and his art was now inches away from his hands, if only he’d brought his guitar with him today.

 _Tomorrow,_ he promised himself. _I’ll write our song tomorrow._

“There,” Tommy said at last, tying the end of the braid off with the red ribbon Technoblade often used himself.

Wilbur blinked in surprise. “Tommy, that’s… actually good. Really good.”

Technoblade reached back and ran his hands delicately over the elegant braid and the flowers woven into it. He hummed appreciatively, then caught himself before he could fully smile. Because he was still Technoblade, after all.

“Decent,” was his only comment.

“I’m not done yet!” Tommy said, and produced one more flower—a single yellow rose. “This one’s my favorite,” he added as he gently tucked the flower behind Technoblade’s ear, the one that had the emerald earring that Wilbur had found so familiar, “because it means friendship.”

Technoblade stiffened. His mouth opened and closed, like he was trying to breathe but forgot how, before he finally said, “Are we friends, then?”

Tommy stood and brushed grass from his pants. “Well, obviously.”

“Obviously?”

“Oh, hey!” The sudden excitement in Tommy’s tone caught both Technoblade and Wilbur’s attention. He began waving to someone in the distance, his smile as bright as life itself. “It’s Dad and Mama!”

 _Mother?_ Wilbur was on his feet at once, his heart hammering in his chest like a moth set aflame. Sure enough, there was Mother, out in the sun once more, for the first time in over a year. Wilbur took in a shaky inhale, not daring to breathe again, as if the image before him would dissipate like smoke: Mother, smiling at them, as she walked arm-in-arm with Father through the garden.

Tommy ran as fast as he tiny legs could carry him and launched himself into their mother’s waiting arms. Wilbur couldn’t ignore the brief flash of pain that flickered over his mother’s features as she gathered Tommy into hug, but neither could he help his relief at seeing her walk at all.

“Well?” Technoblade said from behind him. “Go ahead, then.”

Wilbur turned to his tutor and, before Technoblade could protest, took him by the wrist and dragged him over to where Mother and Father were waiting.

Father’s smile was gentle and welcoming, and Wilbur could almost forgive the sadness that remained in his eyes, like a ghost hovering at the edges of a celebration.

“You must be Technoblade,” Mother said happily, carrying Tommy in her arms as she addressed the tutor. “I do apologize that it has taken us this long to be acquainted, though Phil has been telling me of all you have done for our Wilby.”

Wilbur expected Technoblade’s usual icy jabs, and was quite surprised when he bowed his head in what could pass as deference to an untrained eye.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty. Your sons have told me much about you.”

Mother gave Technoblade a conspiratorial grin as she asked, “And I trust all they’ve said is in my favor, yes? Nothing about how sharp my tongue can be when I’m cranky?”

“Oh, I assure you, they’ve painted you as nothing less than perfect.” Technoblade glanced at Father. “Although Philza might had said a thing or two about your rigid standards for tea.”

Father chuckled. He pressed closer to Mother and Tommy, keeping an arm around Mother’s waist. As if to steady her. As if to hold her together, just a little bit longer. “I told you that in confidence, Techno.”

“Technoblade,” Mother repeated. “That’s a rather odd name.”

“I said the same thing!” Tommy added brightly, always eager to be part of the adults’ conversation.

Technoblade only shrugged, once again demonstrating a level of civility that Wilbur would never have expected of the same man that regularly combatted the king’s orders. “I would feel too much like a traitor if I abandoned it now, after all these years with it. It is my one constant companion, more loyal than most.”

“Loyalty _is_ a rather precious gift.” Mother sighed softly. She transferred Tommy to one arm and reached out with the other, until she was cupping Technoblade’s cheek. “I do hope, my boy,” she continued, her voice as tranquil as a still lake, “that you will find the people you can trust more than your own name. You deserve that, and more, for all you have done for my family.”

Technoblade blinked slowly at her, for once struck speechless.

Tommy giggled. “Techno is _blushing_.”

“I am not,” Technoblade spat hotly.

“Yes, you are,” Tommy cooed, leaning back into Mother’s arms, safe in the belief that she would never drop him. “You _so_ are—”

“Tommy, don’t torture the poor child,” Mother said, even as she giggled herself.

“Wil?” Father reached out and ruffled Wilbur’s hair playfully. “You look a hundred miles away.”

Wilbur exhaled slowly. “I’m just… remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

 _This._ Mother’s soft smile. Tommy’s cheery laugh. Technoblade’s half-hearted protests. Father’s hand on his head. _Everything._

“Nothing,” Wilbur said. “Forget I said anything.” He smiled at his father, for once without reservation. He had never felt so light. He was almost a son again. “Would you like to watch Techno and I spar?”

Father’s expression softened. “Of course. I would be delighted to.”

It was the last good day.

* * *

The knock came at midnight. It dragged Wilbur from the comfort of a dreamless sleep.

“Wilbur!” Technoblade’s voice. Urgent. Almost angry. _“Wilbur! Open the door!”_

Wilbur threw off his covers and bolted for the door. Technoblade stood outside his bedchambers, his red eyes blazing in the dark.

He said the three words that would come to haunt Wilbur until the day he died.

“It’s your mother.”

They ran through the castle, Wilbur, for the first time, outpacing his tutor. They arrived at the long hallway that led to his parents’ bedchambers, already choked with servants.

“Move!” Technoblade demanded, his voice booming over the din. _“Move, or I will make you.”_

The servants rushed to the sides, clearing a path for Wilbur and Technoblade. Wilbur couldn’t register any of their faces, or their voices.

All there was was silence, until the worst sound Wilbur had ever heard. An anguished cry that turned Wilbur’s blood cold. _Tommy. Tommy’s here._

He burst into the room and found his brother curled into a ball by the foot of the bed. The bed where his mother laid. Sleeping. No. Not sleeping.

 _Not sleeping. Not sleeping. Not sleeping_ —

Wilbur could not breathe. Tommy was still crying, crying for their mother. For their father.

 _Father._ Wilbur’s eyes scanned the room, but there was no trace of the king. No trace of the man who had just lost his wife.

“Tommy.” Technoblade pushed past Wilbur and into the room. Wilbur could see him, could see it all, but it felt like watching someone else’s life happen from leagues under the sea. Everything happened too slowly, too distantly. Technoblade kneeling by his brother, prying him off the cold floor. Tommy wrapping his arms around Technoblade’s neck, burying his head into his shoulder and screaming.

Screaming. _So loud. So loud. Too loud._

Technoblade, turning towards Wilbur, handing him something, pressing it into Wilbur’s cold fingers.

Wilbur looked down at his hands. It was a letter. Crumpled. Tear-stained—by his own tears, he realized belatedly.

 _Techno,_ it said. _Tell the boys I’m sorry. And tell Wilbur he will be a better king than I ever was._

The world fell out from under Wilbur’s feet, leaving him suspended in the air. Freefalling, with no true end.

“No,” he thought, or maybe said, or maybe screamed, “no, no, no, this wasn’t how it’s supposed to go—”

 _Oh,_ said the voices, _but this already happened before._

Wilbur blinked. And blinked again.

“Father’s… gone?” he said, not taking his eyes off from the letter. “He left?”

“Wilbur.” Technoblade’s voice, rising above Tommy’s agonized sobbing. Was that worry in the other boy’s voice? “I found the letter slipped under my door, and by the time I came here, it was too late. Your mother, she was…”

“Also gone?” The letter began to shake violently. Or, not the letter—Wilbur’s hands. “But she was… she was just here. This morning, she watched us spar. She was smiling. She was… she was _alive_. Technoblade— _Techno_ —”

_This was inevitable._

Wilbur clamped his hands over his ears. “Shut up!”

_It was meant to be._

“Go away!” Wilbur fell to his knees, pressing his hands tighter and tighter to block out the sound. “I thought I’d gotten rid of you. You said you were going to leave me alone!”

A sudden pain laced up Wilbur’s arm, and he opened his eyes to find Technoblade kneeling in front of him, his hand an iron grip around Wilbur’s wrist. Tommy was gone— _when did that happen?_ —and the silence he left behind was almost as bad as the screaming.

“Come back to me, Wilbur,” Technoblade ordered. “Who do you hear?”

“You,” Wilbur said haltingly.

_He was not for this act. Not for this stage._

“And the voices.”

Technoblade nodded, easing his grip on Wilbur’s wrist. “I can help you.”

_No one can._

Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut, but all he could see was mother’s still form. Father’s letter.

“Wilbur, look at me.”

Wilbur shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Then listen to me. I can help you,” Technoblade repeated firmly, “because I have voices, too.”

Wilbur lungs began to ache with the quickness of his breaths. “You do?” He sounded like a child, seeking comfort from a distant figure. But there was too much pain to make room for shame.

“I do,” Technoblade said. “So breathe with me, until they go away, and we can figure out the next step together.”

That was all they did. They breathed. In, and out, and in again. Technoblade’s hand on his wrist and the sickly-sweet smell of rotting flowers keeping him rooted to the ground. To the universe.

In, and out, and in again.

And in between one breath and the next, Wilbur finally remembered where he’d heard the name Technoblade before.

“Father—he…” Wilbur swallowed down a sob. “He told me a story once, when I was young. The first time the voices ever… talked to me. He told me a story about an immortal god, who was doomed to hear voices in his head forever. A blood god. _Technoblade_. You’re a god?”

“Don’t worry about that now.” His voice was distant, but kind. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But I don’t remember how the story ended.” Exhaustion was a heavy blanket, weighing him down until he was leaning on Technoblade’s shoulder. His throat felt raw, like he’d eaten broken glass.

 _This story has no end,_ the voices said, but they sounded distant, too.

“Tell me how the story ends,” Wilbur begged, even as he felt the last of his consciousness slowly fracture into nothingness. “Tell me you’ll still be here when I close the book.”

“Wilbur, I—” Technoblade mumbled something too low to hear, and then he said, “Okay. I’ll be here.”

Wilbur wanted to say more, or perhaps he didn’t.

Outside, somewhere far away, bells began to toll, chiming his mother’s death ballad. Heralding his ascension.

 _Tell the boys I’m sorry._ His father's voice this time, as quiet as the rest.

In between one breath and the next, Wilbur was king. In between one breath and the next, he was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this at 1AM lmao so forgive any errors please. i am begging.  
> I tried to make Wilbur's chapters sound as distinct as possible from techno's - let me know how i did, or if they sound too similar.  
> if anyone's wondering, Wilbur is 15-ish in this chapter; tommy is 6-ish. 
> 
> also follow me on twitter @thcscus so we can cry over sbi together.  
> comments and kudos are always appreciated <3


	3. when the cold wind rolls in from the north (what am i to do)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No,” Tommy began, rethinking his words even as he was saying them, “being king has nothing to do with it. I guess I mean it was different before… before he started choosing being king over being my big brother.”  
> “Oh, Tommy.” The sadness in Techno’s voice made Tommy’s eyes snap open. “You think he has a choice?”
> 
> //
> 
> Or, hypocrisy, happiness and the heaviness of certain secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's trigger warnings are as follows:  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> panic attacks

Tommy knew a thing or two about secrets.

He was five years old when he first heard the word, whispered from father to son.

“Let’s keep this a secret, alright, Wil?” Dad had said in the gentle hush of midnight, unaware that Tommy was right outside the library door, hanging on to every word. Even then, Tommy must have known Wilbur was special, if Dad was speaking to him like that: not like he was an annoying child, but like they were equals, bearing the same burdens and battle scars.

“But what if they never go away?” Wilbur had whispered back. Tommy had never heard his older brother so frightened.

Tommy walked away before he could hear the rest of the conversation he was obviously not privy to. Looking back, perhaps some part of him wanted to preserve his gilded image of his older brother—like a dead fossil crystallized in amber. Because older brothers were never scared. Older brothers never bled. Older brothers never cowered. Older brothers were immortal. He would hold on to that belief until it was too late.

He was six years old when he got a secret to keep of his own, and truly understood its burden.

A year later, and his brother is crowned.

Tommy stood proudly in the crowd as Wilbur kneeled before a man in white robes. The sunlight from the windows caught in the jewels of the crown held over Wilbur’s head—a crown that was once their father’s, but no longer. Wilbur recited oaths of protection and generosity, goodness and fairness, righteous justice and unwavering fealty to the kingdom, and the robed man proclaimed him King Wilbur, Protector of the Realm, Ruler of the Kingdom. _Long may he reign._ Tommy had cheered the loudest, enough to shake the rafters above, and when Wilbur smiled, he knew it was just for him.

Two years later, on the cusp of his tenth birthday, Tommy asked Technoblade the same question he’d been asking since they met. _Will you train me?_ This time, Technoblade said yes.

Time unfurled like unbound parchment, rolling off into the distance without Tommy’s notice. They grew together, him and his king brother. Taller and broader, stronger and smarter—more Wilbur for the latter, if Tommy were to be honest. Wilbur’s duties took him from Tommy more often than not, but that was alright, too, because Tommy had Techno. They would spar and talk until Techno was inevitably called back to the king’s side, but by then Tommy was appeased. The days he was alone were the worst, but mostly indistinguishable in their monotonous quiet.

On one of those days, he found himself drifting aimlessly through the castle. Halfway down a vaguely familiar hallway, he heard something that had been sorely missed since his mother’s death. Music.

He followed the sound to a door that was slightly ajar. Tommy held his breath as he looked through the crack, and then lost his breath altogether when he found the source of the mournful melody: Wilbur, tiredness etched into the slope of his shoulders and the skin under his eyes, strumming his guitar, cursing as he missed a note or two, but still continuing, still playing, still soldiering on. And with him was Technoblade on a sweetly-keening violin, his scarred hands moving gently over the strings, his bow arm moving fluidly through the air. Both of them had their eyes closed, so completely lost to their own music, and Tommy knew—deep in his gut—that this was a world he could never breach. And so he closed the door and retreated to his silence.

At fifteen years old, Tommy was the oldest he’d ever been, but he never felt so young.

* * *

Wilbur’s official chambers were not meant for those outside of his council, but Tommy had never been one for rules. The guard outside the carved double doors (truly pretentious, in Tommy’s correct opinion) merely sighed at the sight of Tommy coming down the hallway, and shuffled to the side to let him pass.

“His Majesty has a lot of paperwork to do,” the guard said, trying—and failing—to be stern.

“If so, then His Majesty would certainly welcome my esteemed company,” Tommy replied, giving the guard a grin and a salute as he pushed his way into the king’s offices.

Beyond the door was a large, sparsely-decorated room. There used to be paintings on the walls of past kings—their forefathers with gold hair and brilliant-blue eyes—but the first thing Wilbur had done as king was take them all down. Tommy remembered sitting on the floor of the offices, staring up as Wilbur climbed a ladder, rolled his sleeves up to his elbow and began ripping the paintings from their hooks. There had been such violence in his movements, as if the task was the very bane of his existence. Once it was done, Wilbur stood in the center of his devastation, taking in the bare walls, and nodded once to himself, pleased. Tommy still didn’t know if Wilbur even noticed he was there, too.

The only paintings on the walls now were the landscapes Mama used to make. Tommy’s favorite was the one of a mountain range shrouded in blue mist, because he could see in the corner where Mama had given him the brush for a few seconds—three errant brushstrokes in an otherwise perfect painting that stood as a reminder that, once upon a time, Tommy had existed in the same universe as his mother.

Bookshelves stood against one wall, with the other two set with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens outside. At the center of all things was a desk, and a king.

Wilbur sat scribbling away at a roll of parchment. His crown lay discarded beside his inkpot and a cup of cold tea.

“What’re you doing?” Tommy asked, closing the door behind him.

Wilbur didn’t reply. He gave no indication of even hearing him.

Tommy rolled his eyes and produced two apples from his pockets. He made his way over to the desk, moved over a stack of heavy, important-looking books and hauled himself up to a sitting position, his legs dangling over the edge.

“You’ve been here all day, you know,” Tommy said idly, balancing one of the apples on the tip of his finger. “Missed breakfast and lunch.”

Wilbur only grunted in response.

“Kingdom’s on fire,” Tommy continued. “Rioting in the streets. The guards are staging a coup. Techno is leading them.”

“Sure, Tommy,” Wilbur said noncommittally, reaching to dip his quill into the inkpot.

Tommy casually moved the inkpot out of his reach. Wilbur glared up at him, finally acknowledging him, albeit with annoyance.

“What do you want, Tommy?” Wilbur asked, irritable.

Tommy took one of the apples and planted it squarely in front of his brother. “Starvation’s a pretty shit way to go,” Tommy said. “Find a less dumb way to die.”

Wilbur stared down at the fruit as if he had never seen one before. “I’m not hungry,” he said, at the exact moment his stomach started to growl.

Tommy snorted. “How embarrassing for you.”

“Shut _up_.” But Wilbur was putting down his quill and reaching for the apple. Tommy bit into his own to hide his self-satisfied smile.

Tommy leaned over to catch a glimpse at what Wilbur was writing. His brother’s familiar looping script had already covered most of the page with words like _intentions_ and _fortifications_ and _conscription_.

“Conscription?” Tommy repeated around a mouthful of apple. “What does that mean?”

“Swallow before speaking,” Wilbur said mildly.

“ _Swallow before speaking,_ ” Tommy mocked. “You sound like our old governess. So grouchy— _ack_!”

He’d inhaled too quickly; unchewed apple slid suddenly down his throat and lodged there. Tommy gasped for air, reaching blindly for something to drink. Wilbur hastily placed his teacup into Tommy’s hand, and he drank it down with gusto until his airways were clear once more. When he looked at his brother through a blur of tears, Wilbur was desperately pursing his lips in a valiant fight to keep his laughter down.

“You’re an… ass,” Tommy wheezed. “And your tea is garbage.”

Wilbur swiped a thumb across his own mouth to wipe his smile away. “Techno made that tea.”

“Oh.” Tommy looked down at the tiny teacup with curiosity; he could not imagine his hardened tutor patiently brewing tea for anyone, even Wilbur. “It’s alright, then.”

“Gods, Tommy.” Wilbur placed his elbow on his desk and rested his cheek against the heel of his hand. The look he gave Tommy was one of utmost affection, despite the obvious exhaustion etched into every inch of his face. “Will you ever grow out of your hero-worship of him?”

Tommy took another, considerably smaller bite of his apple. He chewed on the sweet pulp, thinking all the while of the pink-haired tutor that had taught him and Wilbur all they knew of survival—and not just through fighting.

Techno could have left. He _should_ have left, after those long nights of Tommy waking up crying, Wilbur’s dark moods, days where both of them felt so frayed that unravelling each other felt like the only way to fix it, of frustration and anger with no other way out than screaming. But he stayed. He stayed to watch Wilbur be crowned, stayed to be his most trusted adviser, stayed and kept him together when everyone else expected the boy-king to fall apart under the pressure. He stayed and marked Tommy’s height on one of the statues in the training pavilion despite his insistence that Tommy had not grown an inch. He stayed even after Wilbur forced him to attend balls and galas, and endured each one of Tommy’s jibes about the pompous suits he was made to wear.

How on earth could Tommy grow out of worshiping someone like that?

Tommy swallowed, shrugged. “Maybe if you were awesome, I’d hero-worship you, too.”

Wilbur scoffed. “I’m awesome.”

“Wilbur, if you have to say ‘I’m awesome’ to prove you’re awesome, you are not awesome.”

“Do you remember,” Wilbur said suddenly, straightening in his seat and staring at the blood-red fruit in his hand, “when we used to pick these with Mother?”

 _And Dad_ , Tommy almost added, before catching himself. “We’d go down to the orchards with big wicker baskets,” Tommy remembered. “You used to lift me up on your shoulders so I could get the ones on the higher branches.”

A wistful smile tugged on Wilbur’s lips. “I probably can’t lift you now.”

“I’m not _that_ heavy—”

Wilbur shook his head. “It’s not a matter of whether I could, it’s a matter of whether you’d let me.”

Tommy opened his mouth to retort, then quickly shut it when he realized it was true. He probably wouldn’t appreciate being on Wilbur’s shoulders, nor would he even need to. He’d hit his growth spurt sometime last year, incensing Techno greatly when it was clear Tommy would be taller than him if he kept up the pace. That meant he would soon be taller than Wilbur, too.

“We could just try shooting apples down with arrows,” Tommy offered gently.

“I’ll try not to shoot for your eye this time,” Wilbur replied with a laugh.

“I don’t remember much about her,” Tommy admitted as rolled his apple between his palms, as if that could somehow make her distant laughter clearer in his head. “But I remember how much she loved those apple-picking days. We would be there until midnight, if she got her way. She used to gather the apple blossoms and toss them at us just to make us laugh whenever we complained we were getting bored.”

“No,” Wilbur said quietly. “That was Father.”

Tommy wanted to kick himself. “Oh. Well. I’m sorry, I guess, I don’t really remember—”

“It’s alright, Tommy, there’s no need to apologize.” Wilbur tossed his apple high into the air and caught it gracefully with one hand. “He abandoned you, too.”

They polished off the rest of their apples in silence, neither of them saying another word about the phantoms that had been hanging over them for nearly a decade. It seemed to Tommy that people were haunted by two types of ghosts: the ghosts of those who died, and those who left. It just his luck that he had both.

When they were both done, Wilbur silently wrapped the cores in an extra sheet of parchment and placed it on the edge of his table for later disposal. As he did, Tommy’s attention was drawn back to the letter Wilbur had been working on when he entered.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Tommy said, idly kicking his heels against Wilbur’s desk. “What does _conscription_ mean?”

Wilbur sighed as he took up his quill again. “You don’t need to know, Tommy.”

Tommy bristled at the careless dismissal. “I’m a prince of this kingdom, Wilbur. I _deserve_ to know.”

Wilbur quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, suddenly you’re interested in the affairs of the realm?”

“I’ve always been interested.”

“What’s our highest-earning exported product, then?”

“Uh.” Tommy scanned the table. “Apples. Tea? Parchment.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes. “You are a ridiculous child.” He began scribbling away at the letter once more.

“I’m not a child,” Tommy murmured.

“You are. Look at yourself. You’re supposed to be a prince, and yet you spend your days play-fighting with Techno, or annoying the guards, or annoying _me_. What part of your behavior _isn’t_ childlike?”

Wilbur’s quill stopped in the middle of a sentence as his words settled over them. Tommy felt heat rise to his cheeks and hurriedly got to his feet before Wilbur could see. His gut churned at the insult, and the lingering taste of apple on his tongue turned rancid and bitter.

“Tommy—” Wilbur called, but Tommy was already making his way towards the door. “Tommy, wait.”

“You’re not the fucking boss of me,” Tommy spat without turning, lacing his words with venomous anger.

“I _am_ , actually, but that’s besides the point.” Tommy heard Wilbur’s seat scrape against the floor, but no footsteps running after him. “Tommy! Gods. You’re proving my point if you walk out that door.”

“I don’t care. Screw you, Wilbur, screw you!” Tommy threw the doors open, startling the guard outside. He marched past the threshold, slapping at his cheeks as if that might somehow dissipate the shame gathering there.

He shouldn’t be this angry. All three of them—Techno, Wilbur and Tommy himself—have said worse things in the past, to and about each other, but seldom did it ever sting like this. Perhaps because it came in the wake of their father’s memory being conjured up between them. Perhaps because it had been their first proper conversation in a week. Perhaps because Wilbur was right. Wilbur was always right.

The doors slammed shut behind him, echoing through the empty hallway.

 _Come on_ , Tommy prayed, _run after me_.

But the doors stayed closed, and that was answer enough.

* * *

Tommy found Techno in the training pavilion, practicing his lunges with the silver trident Wilbur had gifted him a few years back. Technoblade took one look at the expression on Tommy’s face and tossed him a spear that had been leaning against one of the statues. Wordlessly, they took their positions in the middle of the pavilion, sizing each other up for a moment before jumping into action.

After six years under Techno’s tutelage, Tommy could hold his own against knights twice his age and size. He’d even beaten Wilbur in once, though the older sibling profusely maintained that he went easy on Tommy. But he had never beaten Techno.

Tommy was sure even Wilbur, who’d been training with Techno for longer, had never won against their tutor. In a truly bleak moment when he was thirteen, Tommy eventually realized that the man they were fighting against might not even be using his full strength.

But that didn’t matter right now. It wasn’t about winning this time.

Tommy rushed Techno with a visceral scream, a sound that came from deep within his chest. Techno deflected him easily enough, but Tommy continued the onslaught, dealing blow after teeth-shattering blow. He kept screaming through it all, screaming nonsensically, screaming at his brother, at his dad, at his kingdom, at the gods themselves. He felt as if his throat might tear itself apart.

Tommy managed to push Techno back towards one of the statues, the one that bore marks of Tommy’s height over the years. Techno grunted as Tommy shoved the butt of his spear against Techno’s chest, and then retaliated by catching its shaft in the prongs of his trident. With a single jerk of his arm, Techno ripped the spear out of Tommy’s hands. It clattered to the floor somewhere behind Tommy, but that didn’t stop him. He balled up his fists and hit indiscriminately at Techno, his knuckles finding an arm, a rib, a collarbone.

And Techno merely stood there, taking all of it. He let Tommy burn his anger away into exhaustion, without a word of protest. When Tommy collapsed to the ground, a heaving, sweaty mess, Techno silently placed his own weapon to the side and laid down beside him.

They spent half an hour just like that, staring up at the roof, listening to Tommy’s harsh breathing slowly wind down. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them needed to. Silence was a language in and of itself, and Techno was the most fluent in it. And so he was the one who knew just how to break it.

“Let me guess,” Techno drawled, “you and Wilbur had a fight again?”

Tommy exhaled through his nose. “Called me an annoying child,” he muttered.

“He does that every day, Tommy.”

“I know. It was different this time, though. He might actually have meant it.”

“Ah.” There was a rustle of fabric as Techno crossed his arms under his head. “Well, Wilbur’s not having a very fun week, so I’d take anything he says with a grain of salt.”

“I wouldn’t know that,” Tommy grumbled. “Neither of you tell me anything.”

“You never expressed a desire to be told.”

“I would appreciate being told regardless.”

“Noted, then.”

Another moment of silence stretched before Tommy whispered, “He didn’t even run after me. He would have, before.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Techno shift so he was looking down at him, arm braced against the floor.

When Techno spoke again, his voice was patient. “Before what? Before he was king?”

Tommy sighed. He felt like his lungs had come loose in all the chaos. Everything in his chest was all too tight, all too sore. He closed his eyes against the pain, seeing his brother in the darkness: brown curls falling over his eyes as he bent over his guitar, smiling at his own music. Tommy would give anything to hear Wilbur play like that again.

“No,” Tommy began, rethinking his words even as he was saying them, “being king has nothing to do with it. I guess I mean it was different before… before he started choosing being king over being my big brother.”

“Oh, Tommy.” The sadness in Techno’s voice made Tommy’s eyes snap open. “You think he has a choice?”

Tommy rolled over to finally look Techno in the eyes. Not much had changed with Techno over the years. He still kept his hair long and occasionally let Tommy braid it. His hands remained as scarred as ever, with some fresh ones now and again from adventures he told no one about, and he still wore shirts with too many ruffles for Tommy’s taste. But he no longer had the emerald earring he used to wear when they were younger; Tommy couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Techno with it. In its place was the sapphire Tommy had given him two years ago—mostly as a joke, and he’d only admit he was pleased to see Techno wearing it under the threat of death.

Techno’s expression was shuttered, in that way of his whenever uncomfortable topics came up. His past. State secrets. Dad.

“Something’s really happening,” Tommy said, watching Techno’s face carefully. “Something bad.”

Techno’s face remained unchanged, save for the telltale quirk at the corner of his mouth that signaled his anger. Tommy had only seen Techno truly angry a handful of times, and was not eager to add to that list.

“Things are a bit fragile right now,” Techno said, “but I’m trying. I really am, and I need you to know that, Tommy.”

“I do,” Tommy said resolutely. “I trust you.”

Because while Techno had stayed when Tommy and Wilbur were at their worst, they’d repaid him in kind. A few years into Wilbur’s reign Techno had taken to studying up on statesmanship and politics and etiquette as if his very life depended on it. It was the only aspect he was lacking in, he’d said, and he needed to cover for Wilbur when push came to shove on the debate floor. And while Tommy and Wilbur couldn’t understand his sudden zeal, they still knew that their tutor needed rest as much as any other human being, so they’d developed their own systems of getting Techno to eat and drink, and oftentimes had to physically pry him away from the library. Techno eventually relented to calming down after he knocked Wilbur to the ground in one of their struggles to get him to bed.

And when he sometimes disappeared in the middle of the night, or went off to gods-know-where for days on end, they’d simply welcome him back when he was ready, no questions asked—partly because the look on Techno’s face after his little escapades implied that whoever asked would be thrown over a balcony.

“If things are so bad, why’re you here, then?” Tommy asked. “Shouldn’t you be at the king’s side, Sir Right-Hand-Man?”

Techno wrinkled his nose in response.

“Oh.” Laughter bubbled out of Tommy, unbidden but welcome. “I see, I see. He kicked you out, too, didn’t he?”

“I suggested a solution that would end all of our problems very easily. Wilbur vetoed it. Adamantly.”

Tommy grinned. “So you’re throwing a tantrum.”

Techno scoffed. “I am not you, Tommy.” He paused. “But I suppose under the dictionary definition of a tantrum, I am currently in the middle of one.”

Tommy began to laugh, that sort of laugh that ended in wheezing and hiccups. Techno watched him with a faint smile, and the two of them basked in the simplicity of it: just two boys on the floor on a hot summer day, laughter bouncing off their skin like sunlight.

“We’ll be okay, Techno,” Tommy assured him once he settled down. “I mean, it’s you and Wilbur. You’ll figure it out like you always do.”

Techno stared at Tommy for a moment before quickly looking away. “That’s enough saccharine garbage for one day, I think. Get up so I can beat you to the ground again.”

“What does _saccharine_ mean?”

“It means you need to brush up on your vocabulary, Tommy.” Techno got to his feet and offered Tommy a hand.

Tommy grinned as Techno pulled him up, and though his palm was scarred, it was warm.

* * *

Tommy rolled his shoulders back until he heard the satisfying pop of his bones righting themselves. He and Techno had sparred until the sun went down, at which point a messenger had arrived to inform Techno that King Wilbur had said uncle and was crying for help (not in those words, but close enough in interpretation).

“Go,” Tommy had encouraged when Techno had hesitated on the steps leading down from the training pavilion. “At least one of us is welcomed back in His Majesty’s good graces.”

“He should be looking for a way back into yours,” Techno had replied, and was gone.

Tommy had spent the rest of the evening stabbing at a training dummy with his spear, until another servant arrived to call him to dinner which—unsurprisingly—he ate alone in an empty dining room. Afterwards, he’d made up his mind to swallow his pride and found his way back to Wilbur’s offices. The guard standing post outside was gone, which meant that Techno was still inside; after all, who needed guards with Technoblade there?

As Tommy drew nearer, voices had begun to filter in through the door, muffled but getting clearer as he approached.

“—quiet today,” someone was saying. “But that hardly means anything. I think they know something I don’t, Techno.”

Tommy held his breath as he pressed his ear against the door.

“Did you do the breathing exercises I taught you?” Techno’s soft drawl.

“Did I—of course I did. I did everything you said, I always do.” Wilbur’s fraught murmur.

“Then why won’t you let me do _this_ for you?”

 _Do what?_ Tommy had leaned in as close as he dared.

“Because it won’t help,” Wilbur had said. It sounded as if this was an argument they’d had a million times before. “We don’t know _why_ they’re gathering at the border yet.”

“You’ve studied history. You know nothing good ever comes from that sort of maneuver, Wilbur. Meanwhile, the longer we wait, the less prepared we’ll be when they—”

“ _If_ they do,” Wilbur interrupted, “we’re not entirely unprepared. I’ve sent the conscription notices.”

There was a loaded pause. “You did?” Tommy didn’t know if Techno sounded more impressed or indignant. “When?”

“This afternoon, after my little brother looked me in the eyes and I realized just how much I have to lose.”

At that point, Tommy had backed hastily from the door as if it burned him. He turned on his heels and ran, his head spinning and his heart hammering, unsure whether to laugh or to cry. Something bad _was_ really happening, something that made Wilbur think he was going to lose everything. Tommy didn’t pay much attention to his history tutors (they were never as amazing as Technoblade was) but he did know that his family had maintained peace in the kingdom for decades, and that talks about borders were never joyful affairs.

Now, in the silence of his bedroom, he paced, working out the kinks in his body and trying hard to ignore the gnawing feeling that he was on the brink of something too large to comprehend.

But there was one thing he knew for certain. None of this would be happening if their father had stayed. Techno did, even when they’d only known him for a few months. What had stopped him from doing the same? 

And then there was the guilt of knowing exactly what could have made him stay, what could have been done. Secrets. What terrible, heavy things. 

Tommy was still wearing a path through his rug when the knock came, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Yes?” he called, suddenly getting the urge to reach for one of the decorative swords hanging from his wall.

“It’s me.”

 _Wilbur_. Tommy relaxed. And then, jolting back, _Wilbur?_

Tommy opened his door slowly, unsure of who was waiting on the other side: the king or the brother?

But standing at the threshold, his shoulders slumped and his smile tired, was just Wilbur.

“Hello,” Wilbur said. “Can I come in?”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Techno told you to come, didn’t he?”

The smile slipped from Wilbur’s face. “Does it matter?” he asked exhaustedly.

“’Suppose not.” Tommy stood back to let Wilbur inside.

Wilbur crept in like a tourist, looking at every inch of Tommy’s room like every little thing was a priceless artifact. When had Tommy last allowed his older brother into his bedroom? Most likely around the same time Wilbur moved his things into the king’s quarters.

“I like this,” Wilbur said idly, pointing at an ancient morning star hanging next to the door. “Really ties the room together, I think.”

“Cut the crap, Wilbur,” Tommy snapped, the morning’s vehemence returning like bitter waves to the shore. “Just tell me why you’re here.”

Wilbur sighed as he threw himself down on one of the spare settees. “We need to talk, Tommy.”

“Alright.” Tommy leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, watching Wilbur suspiciously. “Talk, then.”

Wilbur crossed his legs and returned Tommy’s scrutiny tenfold; his dark eyes seemed to be made for the very purpose of staring people down. “First of all, I would like to apologize for what I said earlier. You are never an annoyance to me, Tommy. But you _are_ a child.”

“Wilbur—”

Wilbur held a hand up to silence him. “Let me finish,” he said, wielding not the authority of a liege, but of a firstborn sibling. “You _are_ a child. That isn’t a bad thing—you’re allowed to be what you are, and you’re young. But that’s also the reason why I thought it was best to keep things from you. In my efforts to protect you, I drove you away, and that’s the last thing I want. And you’re right, speaking with Techno did help me come to that conclusion, but we all need Techno’s help now and again, don’t we?”

Tommy scoffed, but knew he couldn’t disagree. Wilbur knew it, too.

“I don’t need to be protected, Wilbur,” Tommy said weakly.

“Then why do you always look so sad?”

Tommy’s eyes locked on Wilbur’s. “ _What_?”

There was a world’s worth of pain in Wilbur’s expression. “Whenever you think no one’s watching, you look so sad, Tommy. But I see you. You joke and laugh and shout all day, but the moment you’re alone, you—you get this look on your face. Like you’re carrying some heavy weight and you’re trying to find somewhere to set it down, but there’s _nowhere_. I’ve seen that look before, Tommy, and that’s why I’m scared for you. Because Father—”

“Don’t,” Tommy croaked. “Don’t compare me to him, Wilbur. I am _nothing_ like him.”

“Prove it, then.” Wilbur suddenly stood, making Tommy jerk back against the wall. “Do what he never had the guts to do, and _tell me_. Tell me what’s wrong, Tommy. Tell me what you’re carrying, and I’ll help you.”

Tommy’s chest felt tight with the pressure of the decade-old secret. His eyes instinctively scanned the room for an exit, some way out, some way to never speak of this again. He wanted nothing more than to melt into the wallpaper behind him and never see the light of day again.

Wilbur’s expression softened at Tommy’s panic, and he slowly sat back down on the settee.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to—” He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. “I’m so shit at this. Okay. _Okay_. Here. To prove to you that I can handle your secret, I’ll tell you mine.”

Tommy’s brows furrowed. “You have a million secrets, Wilbur. Maybe even more than that.”

“I know. But this is _the_ secret, Tommy.”

There it was again—the feeling that he was standing on the precipice of a dark, unfathomable chasm.

“I,” said Wilbur, “hear voices.” He tapped his temple. “Right here. Voices that aren’t mine, or anyone else’s, as far as I know. We’re still trying to figure it out.”

“ _We_?” Tommy breathed.

“Techno and I.”

“Ah. Of course.” Tommy leaned slightly forward, confusion and fear warring in his gut. “What do these voices say?”

“Sometimes, they’re cryptic. Vague. Talking about fate and strings. Sometimes, they just taunt me. And sometimes, it’s worse.” Wilbur took a shuddering breath. “So much worse.”

“And right now?” Tommy asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

“Right now,” Wilbur said quietly, “they’re telling me to kill you.”

Tommy’s breath caught in his throat. He was suddenly very aware of how many weapons—decorative or otherwise—he had on his walls. “Wilbur, you can’t—”

“I’m not going to do it, Tommy,” Wilbur said, sounding hurt that Tommy might ever think the opposite. “I would never hurt you. But the voices—they’re saying it’s inevitable. That it’s your destiny to die by my hand. That this is… that this is a story that has been told many times over, and we can’t change how it ends.”

“And how _does_ it end?”

“Badly,” Wilbur whispered. His tone made it clear that whatever it was, Tommy was not prepared to hear it.

“Well you don’t—you don’t actually know what the voices are saying are real, right? Maybe it’s all nonsense and it won’t actually happen.”

“But it already has.” Wilbur swallowed, and both he and Tommy steeled themselves for what he was about to say. “Two months ago, the voices told me there was something coming. That an army was gathering at our northern borders.”

“But we don’t have any enemies.”

“That’s what I thought, too. But I sent some spies to investigate, just in case, and they confirmed it.” Wilbur steepled his fingers, his eyes as hard and dark as polished iron. “Just like the voices said. A war might be coming, Tommy.”

What was it that Techno had said? _Wilbur’s not having a very fun week_. Tommy might laugh at how huge of an understatement that was, if he wasn’t too busy choking on his own tongue.

 _War_. Such a small word for such a big thing.

“Well.” Tommy slid to the floor as his legs gave out. “That’s that, then.”

“Techno and I are trying to make contact with the foreign army’s generals,” Wilbur said, and Tommy noticed for the first time how many silver hairs Wilbur had acquired, almost glowing in the moonlight streaming from the windows. “We’re doing everything we can to stop it from happening, Tommy. But, yes. That’s it. Those are my biggest secrets. The rest are inconsequential.” He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. “I think it’s your turn, Tommy.”

Tommy laughed bitterly. “After that reveal, anything I say will just sound stupid.”

“It won’t,” Wilbur said resolutely. He leaned back on the settee, giving Tommy a gentle look. “Whenever you’re ready, Tommy. I’m right here.”

Tommy drew his legs towards himself and wrapped his arms around his knees, clinging on for dear life. This was too much, too fast. He wanted to yell. He wanted to crack his fists open on the marble statue with Techno’s little markings. He wanted to pinch himself and wake up yesterday, when nothing was wrong expect for the gnawing pain in his chest that had never gone away, even nine years later. He wanted his parents.

The world had gone suddenly dark, and in the shadows, Tommy finally let go.

“You want my secret, Wilbur?” He pressed his face against his knees, as if that might hide his shame from the world. “I saw him.”

There it was. The truth. Or a confession. Or both.

“That night, I saw him.”

He heard Wilbur suck in a breath. There was no need to elaborate. Between the two of them, there was only ever one ‘he,’ and only ever one night.

“He kissed my hair, and that’s what woke me. I saw him walk away from my bed, towards my window. I saw him open it, and I saw him climb out. Or jump out. I want to say he flew out, like a bird. But I don’t remember that part very well. What I do remember is just lying here. Fully awake, knowing something was really fucking wrong. I just laid there.” Tommy’s eyes began to sting, so he closed them shut before the first of the pathetic tears could fall. “Eventually, I climbed out of bed, and I went to their room, wanting to believe that I’d just dreamt it all. And that’s when I found Mama.”

He could still it, in his mind’s eye. He remembered so little of her, but he could never forget how he’d crawled up on the bed next to her, trying to wake her. He could never forget his confusion when she refused to, nor the blinding pain when he realized why.

“And most days, Wilbur, that’s all I think about. How I was awake and could have stopped him, and I could’ve made him stay, and you wouldn’t have needed to be king so young. I could have spared you for all of this, Wilbur. And now, everything’s gone to shit and it’s all my—” A sob tore free from his lips, sudden and unrelenting. “I want to help you. But I don’t know how. Nobody ever taught me how.”

“Tommy…” Wilbur’s voice sounded so far away.

“But the worst thing,” Tommy continued, trying to ignore the ever-tightening noose around his neck, “is that maybe I should have seen it coming. He used to come by your door, in the middle of the night, when you used to live across the hall. I kept my door open, just a crack, after the first time it happened, just to see if he would come again. And he did, so many times. I used to think he would knock eventually, but he never did.” Tommy tightened his hold on himself, shaking with grief, and maybe with relief, too. “I think he was saying goodbye long before he left, Wilbur.”

For a moment, the only response to his words was silence. Tommy was afraid to look up, to see if Wilbur had left, angry and betrayed.

But instead, Tommy felt warm arms encircle him and pull him towards something safe and solid.

“Tommy,” Wilbur whispered into Tommy’s hair, “you were _six_.”

And that was it. That was what broke Tommy, in the end. He crashed into his brother, wrapping his arms around Wilbur’s torso and burying his face in his chest. The tears finally came, a culmination of nine years of guilt and paranoia, of stumbling through life unsure of where he stood with his brother, of fearing that one day, Wilbur might find out what he failed to do and hate him forever.

But this wasn’t hate. This was the opposite.

“Shhh.” Wilbur ran a hand through Tommy’s hair. “It’s alright, Tommy. Let it all out.”

There was just the two of them in that moment. There were no voices, no ghosts, no secrets.

Just Wilbur and Tommy. Tommy and Wilbur.

Eventually, Tommy’s sobbing ebbed. His cheeks were wet and cold from his tears, but he could breathe easier than ever did. He drew back from the circle of Wilbur’s arms and found his brother looking at him with a gentleness that he could never deserve in a thousand years.

“See?” Wilbur said, delicately brushing stray tears from Tommy’s cheeks. “Isn’t it lighter with someone else to carry it with?”

Tommy sniffled. “You always have to be right, don’t you?”

“Well, of course. Otherwise, I’d be stripped of my title as Grandmaster of Pretentiousness. The Council would have a field day.”

Tommy laughed wetly. “What will your voices say after you suffer such a disgrace?”

“Funnily enough,” Wilbur said softly, “they’re very quiet right now.”

“So what happens now?” Tommy whispered into the dark.

“I don’t know,” Wilbur confessed. “But what I _do_ know is that there should be no more secrets between brothers. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Tommy smiled. “No more secrets.”

Wilbur looked as if he wanted to say something else, but Tommy would never have the chance to find out what, because at that same moment, Techno burst through the door, his expression like hellfire.

Wilbur was on his feet in an instant, reaching for a crumpled note Techno was holding out to him. Tommy watched his brother’s face drain of all color as his eyes scanned through the message.

“What?” Tommy demanded, his heartbeat ringing in his ears. “What does it say?”

When Wilbur looked back at him, his eyes were bleak and haunted. “You wanted to know what _conscriptions_ were for, Tommy? Well, you’re about to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hi! this was more of a bridging chapter to open for the next one, which is going to be a really long one so i hope you'll be patient with me and trust that ill do the climax of this story justice :)
> 
> story title and chapter titles all taken from "passerine" by the oh hellos. you can drop me a follow at twitter.com/thcscus :D
> 
> and stay safe out there! wear your masks <3


	4. my birds of a kind (they more and more are looking like centurions)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All able-bodied citizens of the kingdom are called to the king’s castle, the letters all said, carried from bustling towns to quiet villages by messengers on the kingdom’s most swift-footed horses and courier birds taking to their familiar wind-carved routes. War is coming, and it is time to defend your motherland.
> 
> //
> 
> Or, war, warmth, and the act of welcoming someone home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's trigger/content warnings are as follows:  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> Violence/Depictions of violence  
> Assault  
> Death

Three men stood on a balcony where once there were two. A mortal king, a mortal prince, and their red-eyed teacher. In the gardens below, travelers were gathering, most weary from their journey from every corner of the vast kingdom. Even now, more were still pouring into the capital city, staring in wide-eyed confusion, a conscription notice tucked into their pockets or crushed between nervous fingers.

 _All able-bodied citizens of the kingdom are called to the king’s castle,_ the letters all said, carried from bustling towns to quiet villages by messengers on the kingdom’s most swift-footed horses and courier birds taking to their familiar wind-carved routes. _War is coming, and it is time to defend your motherland._

The conscription letter had gone on to specify that only those over the age of eighteen were to be included in the king’s army. Many had chosen to ignore that. Among the horde trickling slowly into the heart of the kingdom was a brown-haired boy a year shy of the stipulated age. He kept the hood of his battered cloak up, so no one could see the traces of boyhood still etched into his skin like a brand.

Someone noticed. It was a girl with hair as pink as the hibiscuses she grew in her garden. She had lived in the city all her life. Once, a man with the same hibiscus-pink hair had walked into her flower shop, his eyes bleak and unfocused. He’d asked her if she had any yellow roses for sale, and had bought it all. It was only later that she realized who the man was, but by then he’d already left, heading towards the woods that bordered the city. Now, she marched along the city streets that had become unfamiliar over the course of a week. She’d left her garden to the care of an elderly neighbor. A sign was left on her flower shop door, telling hopeful customers that it was closed indefinitely. There was nothing else to do now but follow the course of the crowd, keeping an eye on a stranger that was definitely much younger than her, wondering whether or not he’d outlive her.

They passed underneath the castle gates, where a woman they called the Captain kept a watchful eye. She was under orders to turn away anyone too young, too sick, too old—but every time she looked into their eyes, she only saw herself. She’d clawed her way to her position, made sure to earn her reputation, and had stood guard over the royal family for over a decade. It was her stubbornness that got her to where she was, adorned with medallions from the king—both old and new. It was stubbornness that she saw in these people now. So while she did her duty by barring the way for the youngest, the sickest and the oldest, if she turned away for a moment when an aged warrior did her best to hide the wrinkles on the backs of her scarred hands, or when a seventeen-year-old boy pulled his hood lower over his face, or when a strong-jawed smith from the city limped by her with a broken foot that wasn’t quite healed yet… well, she would consider that her duty, too.

By the time the boy and the flower shopkeeper found themselves in the garden, it was crowded. People stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pushing and pulling like a tide on the trampled remains of the dead queen’s flowers. The shopkeeper grimaced as her boots treaded across petals and stems, violently returning them to their soil. The boy did not notice the flowers at all. He was staring up at the balcony, looking at the man whose call was answered by thousands.

Most of them had never seen their king before, but they’ve all heard the stories of a boy crowned on the eve of his sixteenth birthday after his father’s mysterious disappearance—or death, or assassination, depending on which rumors you believed—and guided by a strange adviser. A kingdom of peace would never have had any reason to know the name _Technoblade,_ but those who heard the folk story of a red-eyed emperor from a cold and distant land whispered amongst themselves at the resemblance, or the coincidence, or whatever word they could use to explain away the uneasiness brewing in their gut.

The stories also said that the king was kind and generous, with the starry-eyed ambition that came with his youth, and that the younger prince could charm a thousand detractors with his wit and humor. Standing together, they seemed to be as different as night and day: one dark, one light. But no one could deny the shared brotherhood etched into their regal bearing, both products of a boyhood almost drowned in etiquette and decorum.

The prince shifted closer to his brother. “That’s a lot of people, Wil,” he murmured.

The king’s eyes were unreadable in the hazy light of the clouded afternoon. “Not enough,” he replied.

Their tutor crossed his arms as he surveyed the gathering crowd, already calculating battle positions and drafting strategies. This was, after all, not his first war, nor did he think it would be his last. “I’ll oversee training as much as I can, for as long as we have time. I’ve identified some potential battalion leaders from the guards and the people who came earlier. I’ll delegate the responsibility of training the newer recruits.”

“Which is most of them,” Wilbur pointed out. “They never had a reason to learn how to fight, before this.”

“You underestimate your people, Wilbur,” Technoblade replied patiently. “There are other reasons besides war. Look, there. See that person with a bow? They’re a hunter—used to shooting down fast-moving targets, which makes them an asset for our archery line. Folks from the mountain regions are used to riding on horseback, so that’s our cavalry already established. Miners and smiths are used to swinging sharp and heavy objects around. Give them broadswords instead of pickaxes and hammers, and we’ll be ready to go.”

Wilbur cut him a bemused look. “You sound almost optimistic. Did you hit your head on a wall this morning?”

“I’ve seen worse odds.”

Tommy scoffed. “This is different from all your war books, Techno. This is real life.”

He did not notice the knowing look shared between his brother and their tutor.

“Anyway,” Technoblade continued, “I’ve reached out to mercenary guilds to supplement our offensive. Our coffers can handle the hit. After all, this kingdom has only been busy with trade for the decades.”

“And if it all goes to shit anyway?” Tommy asked quietly.

Technoblade’s expression hardened. “It won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” demanded the young prince. “From what I’ve been hearing, we’re nothing more than a bunch of poor saps armed with twigs against this—this—what did they call themselves?”

“The Green Army,” Wilbur replied, not taking his eyes off the people below them.

“Ridiculous name, if you ask me,” Technoblade said.

Tommy did not laugh, as he usually would. “That message you received said they massacred an entire town, Wilbur,” he choked out. “An entire town, wiped out overnight like ants.”

Wilbur’s hands tightened around the balcony railings, his knuckles turning white as he squeezed. “They were taken by surprise. We will not be so unfortunate.”

None of them said the obvious, which was the fact that if Wilbur had not held his secrets so close to his chest, the town that once sat on their northern border might have survived. They might have been warned. They would have been saved from their merciless doom. Hypotheticals, Technoblade had told them before, were worthless, and only crippled their way forward. But it still sat in the uneasy silence between them, broken only by the tutor saying, “Other towns along the Green Army’s route have been evacuated. We should be expecting refugees to arrive in the city in three days, but the temporary camps will be finished and ready by then.”

“And what’s the status on the Army itself?”

“Based on the spies’ reports, we have half a month, at most, before they arrive at the Valley, which gives us another week to prepare the troops before we set out. The armory should be done tallying and divvying up weapons by tomorrow, and caravans have been loaded with other supplies.”

“And the other thing we planned…?”

“Gathering the materials as we speak. The alchemists are working as fast as they can, given that it’s delicate work. But it should be done before we go.”

“Good.” Wilbur raised his head towards the sun, breathing in the last sweet winds of spring. As he did, Tommy and Technoblade were the only ones to notice the fresh scratch marks running down the pale column of his throat. Tommy opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by a quiet shake of Techno’s head. “I guess it’s time.”

In one smooth motion, Technoblade jumped onto the balcony railings, balancing precariously like an acrobat on a tightrope, his beloved trident in his hand. He drove the butt of the trident against the railings, producing a sound like a bell tolling, over and over until the crowd was almost silent, their attention caught.

“Your king,” he shouted, “will now speak. I suggest you listen.”

He dropped back between Tommy and Wilbur, who gave him a grateful smile before turning back to their people. Their army.

“Friends,” Wilbur began, his voice carrying out over the still crowd, now hanging on to his every word. “I see you all from where I stand. I understand you are afraid. You are confused. Years ago, I promised you peace on my father’s crown, and now I call you to war. This is nothing less than treason. Rest assured, I will be facing consequences for it.”

The crowd stirred. Even Tommy looked to his brother in surprise, a question swiftly dying on his lips as Wilbur spoke on.

“But that will be later,” the king continued. “For now, we face an enemy that has mercilessly slaughtered our brethren on the northern border. That is what we shall keep in mind as we ready to face them. More than a battle to defend ourselves, this is a war of revenge. We shall remember the innocents lost to the nonsensical greed of our invaders, and I vow to deliver you your vengeance on a silver platter.”

Techno’s eyes darkened, but he did not interrupt. His gaze drifted to the marble pavilion sitting in the distance, right where the crowd stopped. Its chests had been pilfered, the blunted training weapons melted down to make sharper, deadlier blades. The ivy tumbling from its roof swayed slightly in the wind, offering him a brief glimpse at the empty, dust-covered floor beyond.

He wondered if he’d ever set foot in it again.

The shopkeeper was the only one not watching the king as he spoke of bravery and keeping the faith. Instead, she followed the tutor’s far-off gaze, but all she could see was a small white building, overgrown with weeds.

“This will not be the end of our nation,” the king said with a note of finality, his dark eyes sweeping across the gathered crowd, but not seeing their faces at all. He spread his arms, as if welcoming an embrace from someone no one else could see. “It has stood for centuries, and it will stand for centuries more. We will see our enemies burning, my friends, and I will scatter their ashes on the graves of the people they took from us. And anyone who survives the fire will wish they had perished in the flames, and not by my hands. My only hope is that you might feel the same, and trust that you are in the most capable hands I could find.” He turned to the tutor. “You are in the safe keeping and guidance of General Technoblade. Together, we will defend this kingdom—or die trying.”

The silence of the crowd gave way to thunderous applause, the exultant cry of hundreds of people who did not know, truly, what awaited them on the battlefield. The aged warrior with the scarred hands was intimately familiar with violence, and turned bitterly away from the excitement. She had been like them, once, but no longer. They would learn, sooner or later, but it would not be a gentle lesson.

However, they were united in some things. They trusted their young king and their prince. They trusted their general. And they wished to see their enemies burn.

The boy in the crowd felt that unity down to his bones. _This is it_ , he thought, this was what it meant to be a part of something. To belong. He felt a smile creep onto his face, and soon he was joining the noise, hollering until his lungs began to ache, joining in the people’s furious glee. He was going to hold the line. He was going to drive the enemy back, and protect the land that raised him. And he was going to be a hero. At seventeen years old, Tubbo was the oldest he’d ever been, but he never felt so young.

Only one person did not seem impressed by the king’s words. The tutor-turned-general was staring at the king, his mouth a thin line of disapproval.

“Since when did I get the promotion?” Technoblade asked slowly.

Wilbur shrugged, dismissive. “You’re already acting like a general, anyway.”

“But I—”

“Technoblade.” The king’s voice turned cold as he stared his old tutor down. “You promised to help me. Was that a lie?”

Technoblade’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Careful, Wilbur,” he said quietly. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”

Wilbur blinked, his eyes suddenly clearing. He opened his mouth for some sort of retort, perhaps an apology, but then there was Tommy—brilliant, loud Tommy—leaning so far over the railings, Technoblade had to pull him back by the back of his shirt. When he turned to them, he was beaming, his eyes bright in the afternoon gloom.

“We’re going to win,” Tommy said, his ears still ringing with the crowd’s approval. “We’re actually going to win, aren’t we?”

Wilbur and Techno exchanged one glance—one glance, and all was forgiven, the conversation shelved for another day. The general still looked at the king with something close to concern, and the dark circles under the king’s eyes were getting harder and harder to ignore each day, but none of that mattered anymore. If Tommy said they were going to win, then by the gods, neither of them would tell him otherwise, not when he looked the happiest he’d been in a month.

“By this time next month, we’ll be back to worrying about trade routes and bothersome sycophants,” Wilbur assured him.

“What the hell’s a sycophant?”

“Gods.” The king gave his brother a look that was equal parts annoyed and adoring. “Remind me to hire a better linguistics tutor for you when we get home.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Good luck finding someone that can stand me. I’ll chase anyone away in three days, at most. Bet your whole damn life on it.”

Wilbur grinned at Technoblade. “I can think of one person. Techno, will you—”

“Finish that sentence,” Technoblade drawled in his usual monotone manner, “and I will end your bloodline right on this balcony. I will throw you off, witnesses be damned.”

As the king and prince dissolved into laughter—for one, shining moment, children again—Technoblade found himself smiling. The sky was dark and bleak, but there, on that balcony, there was sunlight.

“It’s you and me,” said Technoblade, putting one hand on top of Tommy’s head, the other on Wilbur’s shoulder. “One more time.”

* * *

The Blue Valley stretched before Tommy, disappearing into the hazy horizon. The two mountains that bordered the valley rose menacingly in front of him, twin endpoints of the imposing mountain ranges that served as the kingdom’s natural borders. A river ran through the middle of the valley, lit into liquid gold by the sun slowly rising over the distant hills.

All in all, Tommy thought as he breathed in the cold dawn air, this would not be the worst-looking place to die in.

The valley was named after the blue irises that thrived in it, lining the cliffsides and blooming along the riverbanks. But they were not the flowers Tommy was in search for.

He ventured down the hillside, keeping his eyes close to the ground. He’d rolled up his pantlegs to keep them dry from the morning dew that clung to the underbrush, but it left everything below his knees vulnerable to the traps that had been set around camp. One wrong move and he’d lose a foot for his troubles. But he was determined to make the trip worth it.

It had been a week since they’d arrived at the valley, and while that meant most of their preparations were finished, it also meant that the other shoe would drop any day now. Tommy could feel it breathing down his neck. The only way to combat it was relentless distraction—keeping his hands busy. So he traveled down the hill, one careful step at a time, until a flash of yellow in his periphery caught his attention.

“Found you,” he said, making his way over to the flowers clustered under a rock, almost indistinguishable from their blue-iris neighbors, if it weren’t for the golden center that earned them their name.

When Tommy strolled back into camp, he had a fistful of morning glories clutched in his hand and a grin on his face. Everybody was already awake—clustered around cookfires, going through morning exercises, or just milling about. Someone had brought their guitar, and its soft music echoed above the sounds of conversation and laughter. People raised their heads when Tommy passed, calling his name or waving him over to join them for breakfast. He cheerfully declined, but not before exchanging jokes and pleasantries with some of the more familiar folk.

It was easy to miss the shadows this way. In the right light, he might miss the tussled hair of those that had not slept in days, or the bleak look on the Captain’s face quickly hidden by a strained smile, or the smell of sulfur that clung to their clothes like a nasty, unrelenting parasite.

“It’s pretty tragic, isn’t it?”

The question stopped Tommy dead in his tracks. He turned towards the person who’d asked, and found himself in front of a girl seated by a grindstone, slowly sharpening a small blade. “Pardon?”

The girl smiled as she nodded towards the flowers in his hands. “Morning glories. They wilt the same day that they bloom, lasting only until the sun sets.” She paused. “Maybe less, now that you’ve picked them.”

Tommy flushed with embarrassment, suddenly getting the urge to hide the bouquet behind his back, as if that might somehow erase what he did. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about—”

The girl simply laughed. “No, don’t be. I would be the world’s biggest hypocrite if I told you off for picking flowers.” At Tommy’s confused look, she explained, “I own a flower shop, back in the city.”

“ _Oh_.” Tommy looked down at the flowers clutched in his hand, his brows furrowing as he thought. “It is sad, I suppose, that they die so quickly. But aren’t they beautiful while they last?”

The grindstone slowly ground to a halt as the girl merely sat there, staring at Tommy with an inexplicable expression on her face.

 _Well,_ thought Tommy, _this is awkward_.

“You know, Your Highness,” the girl said at length, “you remind me of someone. He’s a soldier in this camp, and about your age, as well. He’s off somewhere training right now, but I have this feeling that if you’d only meet, you’d make good friends.”

Tommy opened his mouth to reply, but found he could only nod in agreement. The girl gave him a small, sad smile, as if she could understand his silence even more than if he had spoken, and went back to her work. Tommy pried his feet from the ground and begun walking towards the heart of the camp, but the girl’s words followed close on his heels. That was the true tragedy, wasn’t it? More than the flowers that only bloomed for a day, the bitterest devastation was in the _what-if_ s. Tommy didn’t understand why, but he found himself lingering one scenario: a different life where he had met that person that he reminded the girl of, where neither of them were young soldiers. _You’d make good friends,_ she’d said, but that wasn’t right. Tommy felt, inexplicably, down to his bones, that if he’d met that boy, they would be brothers.

It was only until the royal tent was in view that Tommy realized he didn’t even ask the girl for the boy’s name.

“—if we move this battalion here, they could provide cover. But we would also run the risk of—Tommy?”

Tommy looked up. He hadn’t even realized he’d entered the tent. He found Wilbur standing at the large desk that took up the most room, leaning over a map littered with small carved pieces that represented various troop positions. Beside him, his hair unbound, was Technoblade. Both were staring at Tommy with concern.

“What?” he demanded.

“You’re—You’re crying, Tommy,” Wilbur said softly.

Tommy touched his free hand to his cheek, and was surprised to find it come away wet. He rubbed furiously at his eyes until they were clear of tears. This was not the time. _This was not the fucking time_.

He strode deeper into the tent, ignoring the worried look Wilbur threw Techno, and Techno’s answering shrug. Tommy stopped at one corner of the map and pointed to a cluster of carved archers clustered on what would be the hill they were currently on.

“We don’t need that many,” he said determinedly. “Just one. Just you, Wilbur.”

Wilbur seemed frustrated by the change of topic, but had no choice other than to follow his little brother’s lead. “You’re overestimating my aim, Tommy.”

Tommy drifted away from the map, throwing himself on a spare chair in the corner. He gestured Techno over, and the general silently complied.

“You always pull through when it matters,” Tommy said as Techno took a seat on the ground in front of him, his back to Tommy. As Tommy gathered Technoblade’s hair into his lap, he added, “Except the many, many times you lost a duel with Techno.”

Normally, this would warrant a chuckle or, at the very least, an indignant eyeroll, but Wilbur simply leaned over the map again, his expression shuttered once more.

Techno turned to Tommy and whispered, “We must not break his intense, beast-like focus.”

Tommy snorted. “The only _beast-like_ thing about him is that tangled lion’s mane he calls hair.”

Wilbur’s head snapped up to glare at them both. “I heard that.”

“Of course you did,” Techno said, turning back away. “Lions have an unparalleled sense of hearing.”

Tommy laughed quietly to himself as he began braiding Techno’s hair, his fingers making knots with the ease that came with years of practice. This had been their routine for the past week: Wilbur would pore over the battle plans with wild-eyed obsession that got more and more frenzied by the day, Techno would call out every flaw in Wilbur’s proposed changes until they encountered one that seemed to be actually useful, and Tommy would braid. It kept his hands busy. If it weren’t for the distraction of Techno’s hair between his fingers, Tommy would most likely join the flower shop girl over the grindstone, mindlessly polishing his spear until doomsday.

Sometimes, Tommy would wake up in the middle of the night and find his brother still awake, reviewing their plans and muttering to himself—or, not to himself. The voices. The mysterious, omniscient, creepy-as-all-hell voices that had plagued his brother for years.

Tommy began to weave the morning glories he’d found into Techno’s hair, to hide the fact that his hands had started shaking. Two nights before had been the worst of it. Tommy had been awoken by the noise of glass shattering. Opening his eyes, he found Wilbur standing over his cot, a shard of broken glass clutched in his hand and raised over his head, ready to strike it into Tommy’s chest.

Tommy had stopped breathing completely. “Wil?” he’d said, his voice coming out meek and trembling.

“We’re meant to kill you,” Wilbur had croaked, blood dripping down his arm from how tightly he was holding the broken glass. “We’re going to kill you, Tommy. It’s fate, it’s meant to be—”

“Wilbur.” Tommy had reached out to clutch at his brother’s shirt. “Wilby, please, don’t hurt me.”

Wilbur had blinked rapidly, his eyelashes glistening with unshed tears. “You haven’t called me that in such long time.” And the glass shard had dropped, but not into Tommy’s flesh—into the ground beside his cot, driven into the soft dirt. Wilbur had kneeled beside him for the rest of the night, whispering apologies that chased Tommy into his uneasy sleep. By morning, Wilbur seemed to have completely forgotten the incident, or chosen to ignore it completely, and Tommy was already plucking flowers off the hillside with shaky fingers.

Tommy looked up now to find a white cloth tied around Wilbur’s left hand, where the glass had cut into his skin. It was the only evidence that that night had not been a dream, and that Wilbur’s voices were slowly taking over.

 _It must be the stress_ , Tommy thought as he braided the last of the morning glories into Techno’s hair. When the war was over, Wilbur would be back to normal again, and Tommy could go back to not being absolutely terrified of his older brother.

“Done,” Tommy said at last, flicking Techno’s finished braid over Techno’s shoulder.

“ _Finally_.” Techno stood and plucked one of the morning glories off his hair. He tucked it behind Tommy’s ear before moving over to one of the chests tucked under the table. “Consider this as a sign of my gratitude.”

He opened the chest and pulled out something dark and folded. When he unfurled it, Tommy shot to his feet, his eyes going wide at the blue-and-red coat Techno held up, its golden buttons gleaming, the royal coat-of-arms stitched over where Tommy’s heart would be.

“They finished it.” Tommy couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him. “They actually finished it.”

“Gods, Tommy,” Techno said with a small smile. “It’s just a uniform.”

But it wasn’t _just_ that, and Techno knew it. He and Wilbur had received their own uniforms weeks before, the general and the king in their bold colors. In the chaos of preparation, no one had noticed the prince following in their wake in a simple white tunic until the very last minute. And now the tailors had done it. They’d actually finished it.

Tommy bounded up to Techno, grinning so hard he thought his cheeks might split from pure glee. Techno rolled his eyes, but held out the coat for Tommy to slip into. It fit. Perfectly.

Tommy spun in a small circle before giving Techno a mocking bow. “Sir General.”

Techno returned the gesture. “Your Highness.”

“You two,” Wilbur said, and Tommy could hear the smile in his voice, however faint, “are so stupid.”

Tommy waltzed over to his brother, knocking the carved piece that Wilbur was about to put down on the map. Over the sounds of Wilbur’s protests, Tommy grabbed his hands and pulled him along, humming a vaguely-familiar tune, spinning him in slow circles that could be called a dance under the loosest of definitions. Wilbur went slack as Tommy continued to hum the song, allowing Tommy to spin him more and more.

“I can’t believe you still remember that,” Wilbur said softly, his expression unfathomable.

“Remember what?”

“That song—”

And then they heard it. The sound that turned Tommy’s blood cold. The sound that made Tommy and Wilbur freeze in their tracks. The sound that made Techno reach instinctively towards both of them.

The drums of war, echoing over camp, eclipsing the music of a guitar, the conversations of friends, the screeching of a blade against a grindstone, the _thud thud thud_ of a seventeen-year-old soldier practicing his archery against a dark oak tree, the _thud thud thud_ of the army’s collective heartbeat, the _thud thud thud_ of a thousand feet marching closer and closer.

The enemy had arrived at the Blue Valley.

* * *

They emerged from the mist like specters, the hazy sunlight glinting off their polished blades. Up on the hill, Techno could see them moving through the valley in a steady stream, the soldiers indistinguishable in their tight formation. At the front, someone bore their flag: two swords crossed on a simple green background. The sight of it made Techno ball up his fists with a sudden, unidentifiable anger.

This was it. It seemed like the entirety of the Green Army was here, as expected; while the valley would serve as a chokepoint in the Royal Army’s favor, it was also the only direct path towards the heart of the kingdom. So now both sides were going to throw all their pieces on the board. One decisive battle, a quick end. Only one army would emerge from this valley intact—and Techno would be damned if it wasn’t Wilbur’s.

Techno turned to the king standing beside him. “Are you ready?”

Wilbur’s eyes were looked on the mountains. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

The camp behind them was empty. Everyone was in position, moving like clockwork under orders that they’d been practicing for days. The only ones left on the hill were Wilbur, Tommy, and Techno.

And the archers.

Tommy bounded up to them at last, his chest heaving with effort. “They sent up the flare,” he announced breathlessly. “It’s go time.”

Wilbur turned towards the group of archers behind him. Between them was a raging campfire, sending flickering shadows over Wilbur’s face as he took one arrow from his quiver and dipped its cloth-covered point into the flames. The dozen archers—the best of the best, handpicked by Wilbur himself—copied him wordlessly. The cloth, smothered in a special incendiary fuel, would burn faithfully until it reached its mark.

Wilbur turned back towards the Valley, nocking the arrow into his bow. With a deep breath, he pulled the arrow back and aimed towards the sky. Behind him, the archers did the same.

“Hold,” he ordered.

The Green Army marched closer.

“ _Hold_!”

Techno felt a hand close around his, nails digging into his palm, and looked down to find Tommy staring intently at the encroaching forces, his eyes unblinking. They were close enough now that Techno could see the glare of the dawning sun bouncing off their breastplates.

Wordlessly, Techno squeezed Tommy’s hand.

 _Now_ , Techno thought. _It has to be now_. At the same time, Wilbur called out, “Fire!”

A dozen and one burning arrows arched out over the valley like comets of red and gold. The Green Army paused, perhaps in confusion at the pathetic display of force—just thirteen arrows soaring across the air. It would not even hit their frontlines.

But that didn’t matter. They were not the intended target.

Once upon a time, Wilbur’s aim had been so poor, it would have taken nothing short of divine intervention to correct it.

So Techno corrected it. Now, Wilbur shot true. His arrow landed amongst the weeds, and then there was fire.

It felt like the whole valley was set ablaze, the heat searing Techno’s skin even from where he stood. The burning arrows had ignited a line of fire that ran horizontally through the valley, cutting the Green Army off completely. Soldiers from the Royal Army had doused that area in the ever-burning fuel the moment they saw the enemy coming, and then promptly fell back into the mountains, taking shelter for the next phase. The fire would not hold them off forever.

Wilbur gave a signal, and the archers scattered to their next positions, leaving the three of them truly alone, watching the wall of fire for the first signs of life. It came in the form of a man in a white cloak, stepping through the flames like it was merely an inconvenience. He shrugged off the heat, flicking an ember off his shoulder before his eyes found them on the hill. He pointed his sword, straight at Wilbur.

“That isn’t a white flag of surrender, Techno,” Wilbur said quietly.

“No, it is not,” Techno replied, finally letting go of Tommy’s hand and reaching for his trident. “It was a long shot, anyway. A little heat is nothing to mass murderers.”

 _You should know_ , his voices purred.

 _This is not the time for your sass,_ Techno thought back, as if that might stop the age-old melody that was starting to play in his head.

The rest of the enemy army followed after the man in white, less gracefully, but stubbornly—like godsdamned cockroaches crawling over the valley. And then there was a battle cry, ringing from all directions as the Royal Army appeared from their hiding spots—in trees or in the weeds, from the river and from the mountains—and catching their enemy by surprise. But the Green Army was well-trained. They recovered swiftly, and though most of their army was stuck behind the fire, they were biting back. It wasn’t long until bodies were dropping—and not just the enemies’.

Techno’s hand tightened around his trident as the valley filled with sounds of war, but it was not out of fear. Techno would never admit it out loud, but he could feel something almost like excitement pounding through his veins. This was familiar. This was something he knew, deep in his bones, he could do without failure. Being Wilbur’s teacher, and then Tommy’s— _that_ had been terrifying. But this? This was nothing. This was just another battle to fight, just another war to win.

“We need to help,” Tommy said, his feet already moving down the hill.

Wilbur’s hand shot out, dragging Tommy backwards. Both Techno and Tommy looked at him in surprise, but Wilbur was looking past them, at the carnage happening right below their feet, his eyes dark as the earth of a freshly-dug grave.

“Wilbur?” Tommy asked in astonishment.

Wilbur blinked rapidly, like he was coming out of a dream. “Not yet,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean not yet?” Tommy demanded, pulling himself out of Wilbur’s grip. “Our people are _dying_ down there!”

“Wilbur.” Techno spun Wilbur by the shoulders towards him. “We have to go. _Now_.”

Wilbur took a rattling breath. “I know. Gods damn it, I _know_.” He glanced at Tommy, standing beside them with his face drawn in confusion. “But I can’t let Tommy—”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not fucking here!” Tommy spat angrily. “Wilbur, this is neither the time nor place to underestimate me. We need to fucking go!”

“Tommy,” Wilbur said, staring at Tommy in shock, “I never underestimate you—”

“Then prove it! Let’s _go_.”

“You’re right.” Tired resignation colored Wilbur’s words. “But stay close to me.” He looked grimly back at Techno. “Don’t lose yourself out there.”

Techno could hear the warning in his voice.

“Take your own advice, Your Majesty,” Techno replied sourly, taking in Wilbur’s wide eyes and trembling hands.

“I’m serious, Techno.” Wilbur’s expression hardened as he lowered his voice, speaking to Techno and Techno only while Tommy was distracted by fight below. “This is a direct order from your king. Keep them in check.”

 _He thinks he can control you,_ the voices whispered. _He thinks he is your master. Will you prove him right, like the loyal little dog you are?_

“I promise, Wilbur,” Techno said.

After all, domesticated dogs, someone once said, still fucking bite.

“Alright,” Wilbur said, shouldering his bow with a look of determination. “Let’s go to war, boys.”

* * *

The first time the Captain killed someone, she was fifteen. He would have killed her. She had seen it in his eyes, lost to a drunken frenzy in a small, lonely tavern far from here. He’d come at her with his heavy hands, and so she’d taken a bottle from one of the tables and broke it against the side of his head. And when that hadn’t been enough to stop him, she’d shoved the sharp pieces clean into his throat.

She’d ran from the tavern right after, ran from the town and didn’t stop running until she reached the kingdom capital, where a king with mercy sewn into his smile had offered her a job, a home, and a life that ensured no man would ever dare cross her again.

But even after all these years, the Captain could still remember the feeling of skin giving way beneath the sharpness of her weapon. She could still see the man’s face, contorting with pain and disbelief, barely able to process what was happening before the death throes took him. She could still hear him choking on his own blood, gurgling wetly before he was finally, _finally_ still. But there was a moment, between the killing and the running, where she merely sat beside the corpse of her own doing, numb and empty and cold.

The soldiers this time would not be so lucky.

She could see it in their faces: the ones who’d never seen a day of violence in their lives, making their first kills right in front her. She could some of them hesitate, panic, fall into the same abyss she did once before. Most shook themselves out of it, their brains shelving the damage for another day. But others stood frozen, caught in their own thoughts, until their comrades found them—or their enemies did.

The Captain could not help. She wanted to, more than anything, because wasn’t that her job? Wasn’t she meant to protect them?

And then another enemy would come flying her way, and all she could think about was staying alive and surviving to the next hour, the next minute, the next breath. The Green Army had already begun to find ways through the wall of fire, and it wouldn’t be long until the rest of them would arrive with a vengeance.

The Captain swung her gladius, deflecting the oncoming blow of an enemy before thrusting her blade deep into his chest. She did not look to see him fall; she was already moving across the battlefield, slicing her way towards a group of Royal soldiers pinned between a rocky incline and half a dozen enemies. She took two down before the rest noticed her, and the Captain found herself facing four people at once.

With a shield in one hand and her sword in the other, there was little the Captain could do but face them down.

 _This is it,_ she thought, _this is my final stand_.

“You little shit,” one of them spat at her. “You think you’re so brave, all on your own?”

They surged towards her, and the Captain raised her shield instinctively for a blow that never came. When she looked again, she found all four soldiers dead on the ground, with a man in a red-and-blue coat and flowers in his hair standing over the still-twitching bodies. Blood dripped down the prongs of his trident, too much to have come from just the four bodies. Four throwing knives were already missing from the bandolier across his chest, and the expression on his face was cold enough to freeze hell.

“Stop staring and get to work, soldier,” Technoblade said—the very same Technoblade the Captain had seen carrying the small prince on his shoulders around the castle, the same Technoblade that shuffled uncomfortably in too-tight suits at formal functions that he nevertheless always saw through to the end, the same Technoblade that the past king, the Captain’s savior, entrusted with his sons.

The Captain could barely recognize him.

But then again, something in the back of her mind told her that she was truly seeing him for the first time. She’d heard the rumors, the whispers, the questions about how he never seemed to change over the years. She disregarded all of that now. He was the man who’d just saved her life. Nothing else mattered in war.

She saluted. “Sir, yes, sir!”

With a curt nod, Technoblade was off, merely a blur of color cutting a violent path across the valley, his trident flashing in the sunlight. A whimper caught the Captain’s attention, and she turned back to the Royal soldiers that she had been trying to rescue.

“Are you alright?” she asked them.

One of them—a fresh recruit she did not recognize—blubbered, “Who the hell was that?”

“That was your bloody General,” she snapped. “So you can stop cowering in your corner now. The Blade has just joined the fight.”

* * *

The laughter was the worst of it. Wilbur could feel it growing louder in his head, the sound of a thousand different voices laughing at a joke he was not privy to—a joke with him as the punchline. But then the still-healing wound on his hand would ache, reminding him of what he’d done and where he was. He was standing on a rock, feet braced against moss, felling distant enemies with arrows. He was King Wilbur, Protector of the Realm, Ruler of the Kingdom, Leader of the Royal Army, and he’d brought all these people here.

And he was not going to let them down.

He could spot Tommy’s golden head below him, clearing out the enemies that slipped by Wilbur’s shots. He was good. Frighteningly good. It was easy to forget how capable Tommy was at destruction. He was so used to seeing Tommy lose against Techno that he’d forgotten that against anyone else, Tommy was a force to be reckoned with all on his own.

But that did not do much to dispel the worry tightening in Wilbur’s gut. He was, after all, also an older brother.

Tommy launched himself at an incoming enemy, spear out. The enemy swung with his sword, but Tommy ducked just in time and swept his leg out to knock the man over. Wilbur saw the spear pierce clean through, and the body was still twitching on the ground before Tommy was whirling around to face another. This one didn’t even get a meter near Tommy before Wilbur had put an arrow through their throat.

Tommy whirled around and flashed Wilbur a grin. “Not bad, archer boy!”

Despite everything, Wilbur managed a small smile. A smile that slipped from his face when a sudden motion flickered in the corner of his vision.

“Tommy, _watch out_!” Wilbur shouted, just as the enemy solider barreled into Tommy. The two of them tumbled into the dirt, a tangle of limbs and blades.

Wilbur fumbled for an arrow and found his quiver empty.

 _Shit!_ he thought.

 _Shit_ , the voices agreed happily.

Wilbur hurriedly slung his bow over his shoulder and, in the same breath, unsheathed his twin rapiers from their scabbards. He dropped down from his perch, his teeth rattling on impact, the pain not registering because _Tommy’s in trouble._

The enemy soldier had Tommy pinned to the ground, a sword raised over his head and ready to drop. Tommy was thrashing, desperately reaching for the spear that had been knocked out of his hand, but Wilbur was already kicking the enemy violently off him. The enemy rolled across the ground, allowing Wilbur to stand between him and Tommy, the twin swords flashing menacingly in the flickering firelight.

“Get the fuck away from my brother,” he hissed.

“How touching,” the soldier said mockingly. He was different from the others, Wilbur could tell. He didn’t know how, exactly, but he just _was_. His eyes and hair were as black as coal, in stark contrast to the blood-stained white cloak he wore around his shoulders.

“You…” Wilbur said, brows furrowing. “I saw you walk through the fire. How?”

The man scoffed. “You think that little stunt could hurt me?” He raised his blade—upon closer inspection, it looked to be made of pure obsidian, pitch-black all the way down to the hilt. “I was _born_ in fire.”

“Are you the leader of this army?” Wilbur demanded.

He gave a short bark of laughter. “ _Me?_ No, no, I’m merely a pawn in this game. A pawn with a grudge to settle, but still a pawn nonetheless.” He grinned. “Now, show me what he taught you, king.”

Wilbur didn’t need to be told twice. He launched himself at the man, blue irises crunching beneath his feet. Their swords met, and from there it was a dance. Blades flashed as Wilbur began pushing the man backwards, but he was matching Wilbur hit for hit. Wilbur thrusted forward with his left sword, but the man dodged fluidly before swinging his sword in a mean arc that would have taken Wilbur’s head clean off if he had not stepped backwards. From there, the man launched his offensive, striking from above, but Wilbur managed to cross his rapiers together and blocked the hit just in time. The blow reverberated down to Wilbur’s bones, but the man gave him no time to recover, pushing his blade harder against Wilbur’s. Wilbur dug his heels into the ground and parried, using the man’s weight against him. He’d hoped it would cause the man to stumble and end this matter once and for all, but instead, the man swung again, feigning another overhead strike before changing to a side hit at the last moment.

Wilbur blocked the blow, but the force of it sent him crashing to the ground. The white-cloaked soldier stood over him, a small smile playing on his lips.

“That was disappointing,” he said, spinning his sword lazily between his fingers. As if he had all the time in the world. “At the very least, I expected a man trained under a god of blood to, well, actually draw some.”

Wilbur froze. He glared up at the man standing before him, suddenly understanding.

“You’re here for Techno.”

The man stopped spinning his sword. “I’m surprised he told you what he is. You must mean a lot to him.” His smile was slow and cold. “That makes this all the more fun.”

He raised his sword and brought it crashing down.

* * *

It might have been hours. It might have been days. It might even have been between the space of one breath and another. Technoblade could no longer tell.

More and more of enemy were finding ways to breach the wall of fire. The Royal Army’s archers were doing their best to snipe them down before they could join the fray, but their dreadful lack of experience was beginning to show. Cracks were forming. They were nearing a breaking point.

 _No,_ Techno thought, trident in one hand, a bone-handled chain whip in the other. _Not if I can help it_.

He found himself in the thick of it, drawn not to the violence but to the sounds of Wilbur’s people— _his_ people—calling for help. A god’s help.

 _Blood_ , the voices demanded. _Blood for the blood god_.

But Techno didn’t want blood, not today. He wanted justice.

“Get down,” he told the Royal Army soldiers that had gathered around him. Techno realized with a jolt that they had not come to him to ask for his protection, but to give him theirs. As if their fragile mortal bodies might make a difference when it came to him. _Fools,_ he wanted to say, but all that came out was, “On the ground, all of you, _now_.”

They were quick to comply. They dove into the weeds just as Techno lashed out with his whip. The heavy chain carved an arc through the air before finding its mark, wrapping around the neck of an enemy soldier. Techno pulled sharply, knocking the soldier down. He shook the whip free and spun it around to hit an incoming enemy straight in the head. There was a sickening crunch as the force of the whip crushed bone. Before the body hit the ground, Techno spun the whip towards other targets—aiming for throats, temples, ankles, anything to pull or crush. He was standing in the eye of the storm, his whip cracking through the air like lightning.

When the chain whip rattled back into his hands again, it was wet with blood.

“You can get up now,” he told the soldiers that were staring dazedly up at him from the ground. “Take care of the stragglers.”

“What _stragglers?”_ one of them called out incredulously, but Techno was already moving again.

He launched himself into the air, for a brief moment flying weightlessly over the carnage, and then he crashed down with his trident, impaling a man to the earth. He pulled the trident out with a sickening squelch and then threw a throwing knife right into the eye of an approaching soldier. Another came running towards him, but he made quick work of them, too.

This was his element. This was where he belonged.

 _More,_ the voices demanded, _more more more—_

This was not his element.

This was not where he belonged.

He was under strict orders from the king to keep himself in check, and he would not falter now.

And then he heard it. Techno could not explain how he heard it over the sounds of swords clashing and people dying and fires burning. It was as if his very soul had only been listening for that sound, and nothing else.

In the far distance, a scream.

* * *

When he was a child, Tommy had tried to scale the side of the castle. He did not remember the fall, but he remembered the crash. He remembered the feeling of his bones splintering underneath him, the pain so blinding that he almost passed out. He didn’t know who eventually found him, but he eventually woke up in his bedroom, his left arm in a sling and Wilbur asleep by his bedside. Techno had been leaning against the far wall, glaring at him.

“He’s been here for days,” Techno had said. “You really scared the shit out of him, Tommy.”

It was the angriest Techno had ever been at him, and that was the moment Tommy understood that what he really meant was that Tommy scared the shit out of both of them.

As the white-cloaked man’s sword broke through the shaft of Tommy’s spear and into Tommy’s shoulder, he remembered that pain, and felt it a thousandfold. He felt the blade break through skin and embed itself in his collarbone, and there was only fire in his veins.

 _“Tommy!”_ He felt Wilbur’s hand pulling him back, and they both stumbled backwards, Tommy still clutching the broken ends of the spear he’d tried to shield Wilbur with.

Tommy fell to his knees, the pain making everything go white. _I’m going to pass out,_ he thought, _I’m going to die—_

“Little hero,” the man grumbled as he approached them once again, the edge of his sword dripping with Tommy’s blood. “You’re only delaying the inevitable. Now sit still as I put you down.”

“Tommy.” Wilbur’s hands were on him, pressing against his wound. “Tommy, Tommy, come here, I’ll fix you, I’ll fix you—”

“Wilbur,” Tommy croaked as the white-cloaked man advanced. “Wilbur, the enemy—”

“Say your goodbyes, princeling,” the man cackled, raising his sword one final time.

Tommy grabbed Wilbur, even as his entire body trembled with the movement, covering his older brother’s body with his own. He shut his eyes, waiting for the coup de grâce.

It never came.

When Tommy looked back again, he found Technoblade standing over them, blocking the man’s sword with his trident.

“Finally,” the man growled, pushing against the shaft of Techno’s trident. “I’ve been waiting for you, you bloody bastard.”

Techno cocked his head to the side, considering the man at length. “I,” he said monotonously, “don’t fucking know you.”

The man’s eyes hardened. “You killed them. You took them both away from me, and you don’t even remember.” He jumped back, cutting the air between them with his sword, splattering the ground by Techno’s feet with Tommy’s blood. “That’s alright. I’ll just make you remember.”

Techno turned to look at Tommy and Wilbur, his expression carefully neutral. He took in Tommy’s wound, Wilbur still frantically trying to suppress the blood flow.

“Techno,” Tommy breathed.

Techno’s jaw clenched. “Go.” He turned back to his enemy, his braid whipping in the wind. Most of the morning glories were gone. “Take care of your brother, Wilbur.”

“What—”

“Tommy, let’s go,” Wilbur said sharply. He began to pull Tommy over to the mossy rock he’d been standing on. He leaned Tommy against it and bent to the task of securing the gash in Tommy’s shoulder. Wilbur ripped the end of his red-and-blue coat and began wrapping it around Tommy’s shoulder.

“I can’t see, Wilbur,” Tommy protested, straining to look beyond Wilbur’s head. 

“You don’t need to see that,” Wilbur insisted grimly, tightening the cloth around the wound. “You don’t _want_ to see that.”

“See what?” Tommy demanded, his throat aching. When had he started screaming? “Wilbur, we need to help him!”

Before Wilbur could reply, there was a loud _crack_ , like thunder, making them both flinch. Wilbur turned towards the sound, just enough for Tommy to catch a glimpse of the fighting over his shoulder, just enough for him to see Technoblade raise the man up by his collar and drive him straight into the ground, shattering the earth once more.

* * *

He was supposed to be dead. As Technoblade drove him against the dirt with enough force to crack it, he knew the man should have died the first time around. But he didn’t. Instead, he merely grinned up at Technoblade with bloody teeth, his face drawn in cold and—much to Techno’s chagrin—completely earned arrogance.

“Ah. I see,” Techno said with his hand around the man’s throat. “What’s a god of war doing in a place like this?”

“I would state the obvious,” the man said calmly, gesturing to the bloodbath around them. “But this is a purely personal affair.”

He kicked up, landing a hit on Techno’s gut that launched him backwards. Techno’s braced himself against the dirt, unwilling to give the war god anymore ground. Tommy and Wilbur were somewhere behind him, and that was all the reason Techno needed to pick up his trident again.

The war god got unsteadily to his feet, then seemed to merely shake himself out of the experience of having his head cracked against the ground with the force of twenty rampaging bulls. He cracked the tension out of his neck and simply picked up his sword again.

“Now that we’re properly acquainted,” the war god said, “let’s take this more seriously, shall we?”

He moved quick, quicker than Techno expected. Techno barely managed to parry a blow aimed directly at his heart. Techno thrust out with his trident in retaliation, but the war god simply danced out of the way before returning again in full force. Techno took one of the knives from his bandolier and stabbed out, managing to nick the other god—just barely—before they clashed weapons gain.

Blow for blow, hit for hit. They could have gone on like that for forever. A god of war and a god of blood. In another life, they might have been allies.

Techno tried in vain to remember which of the many people he’d felled over the centuries had belonged to this man, but there were too many—a long line of ghosts he would spend the rest of his immortal life atoning for.

 _Atoning?_ the voices laughed. _What is there to atone for? Does a lion atone for killing the gazelle? Does the fire atone for burning?_

Techno jumped backwards and threw his knife, which the war god deflected easily with his sword. He threw another, which the war god dodged. Another, which stuck harmlessly into the earth. Techno reached for another, and found his bandolier empty.

“This is futile,” the war god said. “Just put down your weapons, and maybe— _maybe_ —I’ll give you the merciful death you never gave them. You fight and you struggle, but we both know how this ends. Mortals and their bloody games… there can only be one outcome, right?”

“The war isn’t over yet,” Technoblade replied.

The god of war smiled, his eyes drifting to something over Techno’s shoulder. “Are you sure about that?” 

Techno looked behind him, his eyes finding Tommy and Wilbur first, crouched underneath a rock. Techno could not bring himself to linger on the look of fear on Tommy’s face as he stared back at him, and so he continued searching the horizon for what had caught the war god’s attention.

His heart—what remained of it—sunk, as he took in the thousands of enemy reinforcements flooding into the Blue Valley.

* * *

Tubbo stood in the knee-depth waters of the river that cut through the valley. Once clear, it now ran red with blood. Friend or foe, it didn’t seem to matter—they all bled the same.

The river’s current was tugging at him. _It’s alright,_ it seemed to say, _you can let go now._

And Tubbo wanted to. By gods, he wanted to, more than anything. His quiver was empty of arrows. He’d lost his bow and sword in the chaos. All he had now was a dagger, its blade no longer than his hands and just as frail. His body felt like it had been fighting for weeks, but a glance at the sun high overhead told him it had only been hours.

Hours of senselessly slaughtering his way through the fray. It was better when he still had arrows—when he could stand and shoot at distant enemies without thinking of them as _people_. When he’d resorted to using a sword, when he’d gotten close enough to see the fear in their eyes as his blade pierced through cloth and skin, when the blood had colored him crimson, it was suddenly, frighteningly real.

Once, he had wanted to see their enemies burn. Now, he just wanted it to be over

Tubbo looked up at the sound of shouting. Before him, enemies were running through the wall of flames, cutting through the fire like one after the other in an unending tide. The words _reinforcements_ and _too many_ and _retreat_ echoed in Tubbo’s ears as the breath was knocked out of him.

He tightened his grip on his dagger as the enemy reinforcements advanced, cutting down people who were too weak, too inexperienced, too tired, to fight. People like Tubbo.

They drew closer. An infinite army.

Tubbo felt bile rise in his throat. _Too many, too many, too many_. He felt hot tears slipping down his cheeks. _Too many, too many._ He felt his fear and dread like a physical weight, almost driving him to his knees. _Too many._

In the end, Tubbo was not a hero. But he raised his dagger anyway.

* * *

“It’s over,” Tommy whispered. He leaned against his brother as they both looked over the valley, at the enemies descending upon their army like a swarm of hawks. The pain in his shoulder was now a distant worry. It wouldn’t kill him—but he knew death was coming for him regardless. “We’re fucked.”

Wilbur was very still.

“Wilbur.” Tommy turned to his brother. “You know I love you, right?”

The king gave him a sharp look. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Tommy swallowed thickly, trying—and failing—to keep the tears in. “I—I love you. I don’t think I ever said it, but it’s true. I figured, if it’s my last chance—”

“This is not your last chance,” Wilbur snapped, his eyes darkening. He whirled around, facing Technoblade, who still stood between them and the mysterious soldier. “ _Techno_!”

Techno glanced back at Wilbur, his expression shuttered. He did not look at Tommy.

“It’s time,” Wilbur called out.

For a moment, Techno only stared. And then, slowly, deliberately, he nodded. “I’m sorry, Wilbur.”

“What?” Tommy demanded. “What are you two talking about?”

Wilbur did not reply. He wasn’t even listening.

Tommy could only watch as Wilbur unhooked a blowing horn from his side. He put it up to his lips mechanically, his eyes blank and staring at nothing at all.

“Wilbur?” Tommy begged. “Wilbur, what’s going—”

Wilbur blew the horn.

* * *

She heard it. They all did. Heads snapped up at the sound of a war horn echoing through the valley—a low, sad sound like the beginnings of a funeral dirge, or the cry of a lone bird separated from its flock.

The flower shopkeeper met the eyes of a woman across the field. A stranger, only familiar from brief, inconsequential meetings at the camp. But in that moment, they were kindred spirits, united in their determination. The shopkeeper nodded. The woman gave her a solemn salute. It was now or never.

The shopkeeper glanced at the oncoming horde of enemies, butchering all that stood in their way. But the Royal Army was not fighting anymore. No, they were running. They threw down their weapons and ran back in the direction of the hill, stumbling over weeds and irises and vines of morning glories. The Green Army—outnumbering them ten to one—gave chase, unaware of what was coming.

The shopkeeper took off, the rock in her pocket seeming to grow heavier with every step. But unlike the others, she was headed north, up one of craggy mountains that bordered the valley.

She knew the others—at least those who weren’t dead already—must be headed towards the other mountain, crashing through the trees and underbrush as she was. There were fifty of them in total, but only two of them were really needed for the job.

“If you lose heart,” the king had said during the midnight meeting where he’d laid out his plans to the volunteers, “just make sure someone else still has theirs. This a last resort—but it might also be our only choice.”

He’d told them all they were free to leave. None of them had.

The rest of camp had all been told two things: “When you hear the horn, run for your life,” and “Don’t tell Prince Tommy.”

The shopkeeper bounded over boulders and overgrowth, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

“ _Hey_!”

She risked a glance back, and found three Green Army soldiers running after her. They were less used to the terrain than she was—she’d walked this path a million times over the past week—but they were gaining on her quick, their swords raised and ready.

The shopkeeper kept running. But her knees were screaming, her lungs on the verge of collapse. She was tired. So, _so_ tired—

A yell came from behind her. She tried to ignore it, until it came again. She glanced behind her once more, stopping dead in her tracks when she realized what was happening. One of the enemy soldiers was on the ground, a small dagger embedded into the nape of his neck. The other two were doubling back, facing the attacker that must have followed them up into the forest.

She caught sight of brown hair, a small frame. _Oh, gods_.

It was the boy who’d lied his way into the army, and had fought bravely in it until the very end. The shopkeeper glanced behind her, to the cave where her main objective was. She was so close.

But the boy, she saw, was unarmed.

The decision was already made. She ran back down the mountain, her axe in her hand. The soldiers had cornered the boy against a tree, their blades ready to cut his life at seventeen years. But that meant that their backs were to her, and they never saw her coming.

“Just pretend you’re chopping down a tree,” the general had taught them during their training phase at the castle. “The axe will get the job done, but it’ll take a few swings.”

It only took her two: one through the neck, the other into the skull. The two soldiers dropped dead at her feet. The boy stared up at her, breathing heavily, his face streaked with blood and dirt. It looked as if he had aged fifty years in a day. The shopkeeper no longer recognized the young, foolhardy boy who’d run around camp doing the most menial chores, grinning from ear to ear, taking pride in being part of something bigger than himself. He was battered and bruised and bleeding, with eyes so haunted the shopkeeper couldn’t help but wonder about all the things he’d seen since the sun rose over the battlefield.

 _What has the world done to you?_ she thought. But all she said was, “Are you alright?”

The boy could only nod wordlessly.

“You need to get out of here,” she said hurriedly, already hearing more soldiers coming up the mountain. “Here. Take this.”

She shoved her axe into his hands. The boy shook his head vigorously. “I can’t,” he croaked. “You need to protect yourself—”

She gave him a bitter smile. “Trust me, kid, you need it more than I do. Now, go. You know your orders. Back to the camp. Follow the sun.” Before she could think better of it, she pulled the boy into her arms, hugging him tightly. For a moment, he could only stand in listless surprise. And then she felt his arms close around her. He buried his head into her shoulder and let out a single gut-wrenching sob.

When the shopkeeper let go, there was a new spark in the boy’s eyes, faint, but better than nothing.

The boy turned to go, but lingered at the tree line. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Niki,” she said. “My name is Niki.”

“I’ll see you later, Niki,” the boy said, and was gone.

She stared after him for a while, her heart feeling lighter in ways she could not explain. But then a twig broke in the distance, heralding the arrival of enemy troops. The shopkeeper steeled herself one last time, and headed for the cave.

Inside, stacked from one end of the cave to another, connected to natural underground caverns that ran the length of the mountain, was the king’s last resort. The only thing that stood between their kingdom and the certain doom.

 _We will see our enemies burning,_ the king had promised them on that first day, lifetimes ago.

It wasn’t exactly burning, but blowing them to kingdom come was an acceptable compromise.

The flint was in her hand. All she could smell was sulfur, and the distant scent of irises. Her pursuers were at the mouth of the cave, screaming as they realized what she was about to do. They might have begged. She would never know.

“I’ll see you all in hell,” she said bitterly, and struck the flint into flame.

* * *

At the summit of the opposite mountain, in a cave almost identical, the Captain did the same.

“For my kingdom,” she whispered to the empty cave, and let the fire fall.

* * *

Niki hoped, at the very least, that they would plant the prettiest flowers over her grave.

* * *

The explosions rocked the world. It rattled the very sun from its loyal orbit. Wilbur braced himself against the rock he’d once stood fearlessly on, and watched the mountains fall.

 _Yes,_ the voices chorused, _this was always meant to be._

Wilbur had been here before. He’d dreamt it. He’d lived it. As an avalanche of rocks and earth cascaded into the valley—crushing anyone unfortunate enough to be left behind, friend or foe—Wilbur felt a tug of familiarity at his core. His ears rung from the violence of it all—the voices, the screaming, the blasts that went on and on and on.

Flocks of birds soared up into the sky, disturbed from their perches. They were the only survivors.

When the dust settled, all Wilbur could see was a pile of devastation where the Blue Valley used to be. Their enemies, crushed by the thousands or buried alive on Wilbur’s orders. And their allies…

Wilbur bent over the ground, and vomited.

“Wilbur.”

Wilbur’s ears were still ringing. He heaved the last of his stomach’s contents, coughing up blood and spittle. There was no end to it.

_“Wilbur.”_

Wilbur turned, almost afraid of what he would find behind him.

Tommy, his face pale, his eyes wide and staring, as if he had never seen Wilbur before.

“Tommy,” Wilbur croaked. _Stop looking at me like that. Look away. Look away. Look away._

“What…” Tommy’s voice was so small. “What the _fuck_ did you just do?”

* * *

“What the fuck did he do?” the war god demanded. He tried moving towards the king and the prince, but Techno was there, forever blocking his way.

“Don’t take another step.” Techno raised his trident, its prongs aimed towards the war god’s chest. “Your army is gone. There is nothing left to fight for.”

“You _bastard_ ,” the god growled, his obsidian sword trembling in his grip. “You think this hurts me? I died years ago.”

Techno took a deep breath. His hands still reeked of sulfur.

“Come, then,” he said, exhaustedly. _Blood for the blood god._ “I shall kill you again.”

The war god jumped towards him, starting the cycle anew.

* * *

“You said ‘no more secrets.’” Tommy’s nails dug bloody crescents into his palm. “You _promised_ , Wilbur.”

They were all dead. They were _all dead_ , because of the man that Tommy couldn’t bear to call his brother. He wanted to dig into his skin and rip out every part that was Wilbur’s. He wanted to gut himself, tear it all apart from the inside out, if that was what it took to the get rid of the screaming in his head.

Wilbur wasn’t meeting his eyes. Tommy marched up to him and grabbed him roughly by the collar.

“Fucking _look at me_ , you piece of shit!” Tommy screamed. The ground was still shaking, or maybe it was just him. Hot tears spilled down his cheeks, tears of a rage too big for his body. “How long have you been planning this? Was it from the beginning? Did you look our people in the eyes and never bothered telling them you were leading them to the _slaughterhouse_?”

“Some of them had to have survived,” Wilbur whispered, his words almost lost to the window. “I warned them.”

Tommy shook him violently. “That’s not the fucking point!” he sobbed.

Wilbur finally looked at him, but there was nothing behind his dark eyes. “I did what I had to do, Tommy,” was all he said.

Tommy shoved him viciously away. His hands felt dirty. He felt unclean. In his head, he could still hear the strings of a lonely guitar, playing over the soft laughter of soldiers that were now simply… gone. _Gone_ in a flash, between one breath and the next. It had come so easily to Wilbur.

Would it come easily to Tommy, too?

“You fucked up,” Tommy spat. “You _fucked up_ , Wilbur.”

“Tommy—” Wilbur reached out for him, but Tommy flinched back.

_“Don’t fucking touch me!”_

* * *

In battle, when two opponents were evenly matched—in strength, in wisdom, in anger—it would only take one thing to bring it all down. One soldier. One mistake. One move.

The war god had seen his fair share of battles, and had won all of them, except one. The only battle to matter, and he’d lost everything, because a blood god had decided to throw his lot in with the opposing forces. _One soldier._ Afterwards, the war god had dragged himself through the battlefield, his throat burning from screaming his lovers’ names into the quiet sky. When he’d found them, they were stacked on top of one another, as if they had tried protecting each other until their bitter ends. The war god had crawled towards their corpses, curling around them as if he could somehow warm their cold bodies back to life, and he had stayed there for years, letting the moss and the weeds grow over the three of them. He would have stayed there forever, beside the carcasses rotted down to the bones, but a fire had grown inside him, a fire that would not be satiated until he had the head of the god that taken everything from him.

Now here he was, facing off against the very culprit. It was a bloody dance. The war god slashed and the blood god parried. The blood god lunged and the war god ducked. Like the push and pull of the tides, drawn to each other by a gravity of violence.

But all the war god needed, he knew, was a single chance. He would not waste it.

_“Don’t fucking touch me!”_

The words were the high-pitched shriek of a frightened child. A familiar sound on a battlefield, indistinguishable from every scream that came before it.

But the blood god turned towards it, leaving his defenses completely open. _One mistake._

The war god raised his sword high above his head. It was very difficult to kill a god, but not impossible. In the right hands—like the hands of a warrior with fire in his heart and carnage in his smile—it would only take one blow.

 _Goodbye, blood god,_ he thought. _My vengeance is complete._

* * *

Technoblade turned instinctively at Tommy’s scream, just in time to see Tommy draw back from Wilbur’s reaching hands. Pain flashed across Wilbur’s face, but he was otherwise unscathed. Both of them were safe. No knives in their backs, no arrows through their throat.

A shadow fell over Technoblade, and by the time he remembered where he was, it was too late.

Technoblade turned and faced the tip of a bloody sword, a breath away from his face. But it was not the war god’s obsidian blade, coming to reap his soul. It was a familiar silver broadsword, pierced right through the war god’s chest.

Technoblade could only stare as war god looked down at the blade embedded straight through his heart, his sword arm still raised in what would have been a killing blow. Instead, the obsidian sword fell harmlessly out of his limp hold and onto the dirt, and the war god followed close behind.

Behind him stood a winged man, his golden hair catching the rays of the setting sun.

 _No,_ the voices screamed. _Not you. Not you. Not you._

“Hello, Techno,” said Philza.

* * *

Wilbur saw him first. Perhaps that was how it was always meant to be. Some part of him would always, unfailingly, be looking for him. Tommy followed a beat later.

Wilbur saw his brother’s shoulders go slack, like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut. “Dad…?”

Their father was standing before Techno and the unmoving body of the white-cloaked soldier. At the sound of Tommy’s voice, he turned, and looked at his sons for the first time in a decade.

 _And so he enters the scene once more_ , the voices whispered.

And before Wilbur could say anything, Tommy was already running.

* * *

 _One move_. That was all it would take.

On the ground beside him was one of the blood god’s throwing knives, lost during their battle. With the last of his strength, he curled his fingers around the hilt. His boys were calling him home. He could hear them. But he could not face them before they were avenged. And so with all he had left, the war god aimed.

And threw.

* * *

 _Dad._ His father was here. His dad, standing among the blue irises the same shade as his sad eyes. The years fell away like smoke, and Tommy was a boy again. There was no explosion. There was no war. There was no leaving. There was only a son, and his father.

Tommy felt a hysterical laugh bubble out of him as he ran, even as his cheeks still stung with tears. There was everything. There was confusion, there was grief, there was anger, there was relief, there was disbelief, there was joy—

“Dad!” Tommy shouted, spreading his arms wide as he ran, like a bird about to take flight.

“Tommy.” Dad’s smile was still the same, after all these years. He opened his arms, welcoming Tommy into an embrace. “My boy. You’ve grown so much.”

—and then there was pain, as the knife found its mark in the prince's heart.

* * *

Techno watched Tommy fall backwards, impossibly slow. It took a moment for the reality to sink in, and by then, Wilbur was screaming, screaming so loud it drowned out everything else, even the voices that began screeching inside Techno’s head.

 _“Tommy!”_ Philza shouted, running towards Tommy’s unmoving body, but Wilbur was already there, cradling his brother to his chest. Techno could only watch, utterly numb, utterly cold, utterly lost inside his own head.

 _No, no, no, no, no—_ This couldn’t be happening. This could _not_ be happening. It was over. The war was _over_. He’d done everything he could to protect them, to protect Tommy. Why was this still how it ended?

“That is what it feels,” someone gasped, “to lose everything.”

By the time Techno turned towards the war god, ready to rip him limb from fucking limb, he was dead, a smile on his face. _Fuck you,_ Techno thought furiously, _fuck you fuck you fuck you—_

“Techno!” Wilbur’s scream brought him violently back into his body, with the force of a comet crashing into earth. _“Help me!”_

Techno staggered towards them, his blood as heavy as lead, his vision hazy. But he could see the one thing that mattered. His Tommy, lying so still in his brother’s arms. His Tommy, who braided his hair with sweet-smelling flowers. His Tommy, who was quick to anger but quicker to laugh. His Tommy.

The sun was setting over the Blue Valley.

* * *

There was a terrible, terrible silence—the kind of silence that always came before something devastating. The calm before the storm. Tommy had always hated silences. It gave his mind too many spaces to fill with darkness. So he brought light, instead. Noise and laughter and jokes and jibes, anything to keep the quiet at bay.

Wilbur had helped with the weight, like he promised, but now it was back, pressing against Tommy’s chest, suffocating him under its burden. There was pain. So much pain. He thought he’d already felt pain, but what did he truly know? He was only fifteen.

Tommy felt himself lifted into someone’s arms. The arms of the man that had snuffed out the lives of two armies in one fell swoop. Tommy wanted to push him away again, to spit his anger and his disgust, but he was too weak to do either. He could only lie there, staring up at his brother’s face, twisted with anguish. His mouth was moving, speaking words Tommy could barely hear.

 _Let me go,_ Tommy wanted to say. _Give me back to the ground._

But then Wilbur started humming. It was a song. _The_ song. The song Tommy had been humming just this morning, lifetimes ago.

“What…?” Tommy breathed, the rest of the question dying on his lips. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. He should. He knew he should, because otherwise he’d be—

“Your lullaby,” Wilbur sobbed, his tears hitting Tommy’s cheeks. “It’s the lullaby I used to play for you on my guitar, when you were younger.” And just like that, everything that came before was forgiven and forgotten and

—gone. But was that such a bad thing? Rest would be nice. If it meant his lungs would stop hurting. If it meant his chest would stop aching. Sleep. Sleep was good. Sleep was—“I miss your music, Wilbur.”

Tommy could feel someone stroking back his hair, so gently. So lovingly. “Keep your eyes open, Tommy.” _Techno_. “Keep your godsdamned eyes open.”

—bad. He needed to keep awake. Techno was telling him to, and Tommy always did what Techno said. Because Techno was his tutor, his teacher. His big brother. “I would have…” Tommy coughed. He felt blood trickle down his jaw, and then nothing at all. “I would have liked to hear you play together again.”

Wilbur’s hold on him tightened. Somewhere far away, someone was screaming for a medic, and Tommy knew. Tommy knew it was—

“We’ll play for you,” Techno vowed. “When we get home, we’ll play for you as many times as you want, Tommy. I’ll let you beat me when we spar. I’ll let you braid my hair, or even cut it all off if you want to. Anything you want, just keep your eyes open.”

A shadow fell over them, in the shape of wings that Tommy had only seen once before, when he had flown out of Tommy’s bedroom window and out of their lives forever. Or, not forever. Tommy tried to raise his head, to see his father’s face, but the pain was too much.

“ _Dad,_ ” Tommy whispered. He still wanted to do so much. He still wanted to scream at Wilbur and then embrace him. He still wanted to find flowers for Techno’s hair. He still wanted to go home, to the kingdom that they had protected. He still wanted to hug his dad.

But a darkness was quickly gathering.

“Tommy?” Tommy had no idea who had said his name. It all sounded so very far away.

“Don’t leave me,” Tommy begged. “Please. I’m so scared.”

“We’re here, Tommy.” A kiss on his forehead. Someone holding his hand. Strong arms around him. Wilbur, humming his old lullaby. Warmth, even in the dark. “We’ll always be here.”

— _too late._

“Thank you,” Tommy breathed. “Thank you. I…” He had so much left to say, so much left to offer. Love. Forgiveness. Cheer. But he would leave it there, until he woke up again.

Tommy’s eyes drifted shut.

His mother’s laughter had never sounded clearer.

* * *

Somewhere in the distance, the Green God began to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope this chapter was worth the wait! Thank you for reading, as always, and all your kind comments that keep pushing me forwards! If you wanna come yell at me, i'm here on twitter (https://twitter.com/thcscus) :D
> 
> i listened to the pigstep remix on a loop while writing this lmao ALSO SORRY FOR THE MISTAKES I MAY HAVE MISSED WHILE EDITING ill go through them after the chapter's up! just wanted to give you guys a little something before valentines :)


	5. pushing the spear into your side (again and again and again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead. He’s dead. He’s dead and gone forever. The voices were screaming, clawing against the walls that Techno had set around them and had tried to maintain for years. All for Wilbur. All for Tommy. Now one of them was dead, and the other was dying—there was no doubt about it. Wilbur would not survive this. And neither would Techno. 
> 
> //
> 
> Or, conversations, counting sins, and coming to terms with the cost of being a brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just 7.6k words of characters working through grief and yelling at each other about it so this chapter's content/trigger warnings are as follows:  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> death, depictions of grief

He first held Tommy in a sunlit room.

He had come earlier than expected was such a small thing, so much smaller than his brother had been. The midwives had told them there was a chance they could lose him within the hour, and his wife had cradled the newborn against her chest, sobbing against his pale skin.

“My baby,” she’d cried, “my little fighter. Be brave, Tommy, be strong.”

But Tommy was so still in his mother’s arms.

Philza had stood at her bedside, watching her coo and cry at a baby that did not stir. He had lived a million lives, and all its miseries combined could not compare to the pain of being a mourner at his son’s birth-bed. And as the minutes churned on, heedless of the growing abyss inside his chest, he found that he could not even cry. It was a sadness too big for tears, a grief too infinite to measure.

And when his wife had offered the baby to him, to give him his chance at saying goodbye despite her own despair, Philza did something that he would never forgive himself for. He hesitated.

He looked at the silent bundle in her arms, dead before he could even live, and felt the fracture in his heart grow. This was the fate of humanity, eventually. It did not matter if Tommy lived to the next year, the next decade or the next breath, he would still one day die. Bitter and numb and hateful of the world, Philza wondered if it were better that Tommy died now, before Phil could grow to love him more. People mourned the beauty of a wilting rose, but an unblooming bud would give a quieter heartache.

But Tommy wasn’t a flower. He was Tommy. He was Phil’s _son_ , and he loved him now as much as he could love him later, though _later_ might never come. But his arms were made of stone. They would not rise, as much as he willed them to. If he held Tommy now, he knew he would never let go. He would follow his baby to his grave.

And then there _he_ was, sneaking past the guards and the midwives, passing under a grieving god’s notice. He climbed up into bed, smiling at his mother, apparently oblivious—or immune, as often starry-eyed children were—to the anguish that coated the very air of the room.

“Is this my brother?” Wilbur asked, leaning over the baby in his mother’s arms. “May I hold him, mother?”

A lump formed in Phil’s throat. He turned away before Wilbur could catch sight of his face, and when he turned back around, Wilbur had Tommy in the gentle crook of his arms. The sunlight slanted over them, and Phil wanted to remember them like that forever: his two beautiful sons, immortalized in gold. Wilbur’s earth-brown curls hid his expression as he bent over the baby, murmuring something Phil almost didn’t catch.

And the baby began to cry.

Wilbur pulled back, astonished, his face drawn in awe. “What is it?” he asked frantically. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Phil sobbed, falling to his knees before the three of them—his lovely, laughing wife, his kind, bewildered Wilbur, and his loud, shrieking Tommy. “You did everything right, my boy. You’re perfect.”

Now Wilbur held his brother—a baby no longer, but still so, so small—to his chest as they walked through the quiet, empty camp. Wilbur spoke the words he’d first spoken to his brother all those years before, over and over, like an enchantment or a prayer to bring him back to life once more.

“I will love you forever, I will love you forever, I will love you forever.”

But this time, Tommy did not wake up.

And Philza was still made of stone.

* * *

He walked the ruins alone. Night had fallen, but the moon and stars were hidden by heavy clouds, cloaking the earth in darkness. The sky itself was in mourning.

Tubbo moved through the gloom, the torch in his hand creating shadows that seemed to reach out towards him like helpless ghosts. He stepped mindlessly over the rubble, his feet meeting dirt and stone, and sometimes the flesh of a fallen comrade—or an enemy, but did that matter anymore?—that had not been as lucky as him. His ears were still ringing from the explosion, and his bones felt like a house of cards one whisper away from collapsing, but he was alive. He was _alive_ , when all the others were not.

When the dust had settled and the survivors had come crawling out of the wreckage, Tubbo had counted. They had been warned, of course. They had heard the king’s signal and ran as fast as they could, but not all of them were fast enough.

The Royal Army had left the capital city with twenty thousand soldiers.

In the end, only eight hundred remained.

Not all of them had been lost to the explosion. Most had already been dead by the time the mountains fell, slain by enemies and their cavalry. But the smell of sulfur still hung in the air like an accusation, following Tubbo as he made his rounds. He was meant to be looking for other survivors, but Tubbo had come to know a thing or two about lost causes. He could walk this valley for days, and all he’d find were the broken remains of two armies—a mass grave that would honor no one. In a century, people would walk this land again and see only green hills blooming with blue flowers.

The prince was dead. That was what they were saying. Killed in the final moments of the war—its last casualty. A month ago, Tubbo had watched the prince laugh on a balcony, his face lit from within. Now there was no light left anywhere.

Overhead, the clouds broke open, and the heavens began to weep.

* * *

It was raining outside. Techno could hear raindrops pounding against the roof of the tent and creeping through the cracks. But the boundless cold he felt was from something else entirely.

He’d collapsed on the ground the moment they’d entered the tent, shivering with his arms around his knees, unable to feel anything beyond the relentless chill. It felt as if his bloodstream had frozen over, with brutal icicles stabbing into him from the inside out. And when he’d tried to duck his head into the dark embrace of his arms, a single blue petal had fallen against his skin.

 _No_. He’d ran his hands roughly through his hair, pulling pink strands out from the roots in his desperation to remove the last of the morning glories out of the tangles of his braid. Blood flowed from the places where his fingernails scraped against his scalp, but Techno found that he didn’t care. He _couldn’t_ care. The whole world could burn around him, and all he would be thinking about were the flowers still caught in his hair, their saccharine scent like poison in his lungs.

He clutched the flowers in his hands, bloodstained and trembling, and threw them as far across the room as he could, where they landed at the feet of the king.

Wilbur sat at the cot his brother slept— _used to sleep_ —in, clutching the broken boy to his chest. He was rocking back and forth, muttering words Techno could not comprehend as he pushed the hair back from Tommy’s pale, unmoving face.

 _Dead. He’s dead. He’s dead and gone forever._ The voices were screaming, clawing against the walls that Techno had set around them and had tried to maintain for years. All for Wilbur. All for Tommy. Now one of them was dead, and the other was dying—there was no doubt about it. Wilbur would not survive this. And neither would Techno.

 _Blood,_ the voices demanded, _blood for the blood god_.

His hands curled into fists, so tightly his nails broke the skin of his palm. Blood trickled down his hands, but it would not be enough. The voices wanted a massacre. The voices wanted violent vengeance. And there was nothing and no one on the other side of his anger. All their enemies were dead. There was nowhere to go, but inward.

Techno’s knife was still lodged in Tommy’s chest, in Tommy’s heart.

 _Your fault_ , the voices began. _Blood follows you everywhere you go. Did you think you could outrun it?_

He thought he had. By gods, for once in his damned life, he thought he’d finally found somewhere safe. Somewhere where no one knew his bloody past, or cared to. Somewhere with clear skies and a warm garden where he could pretend to be something he could never be. _Mortal_. And now it all came crashing down around him. His farce. His naivete. This was the cost of those halcyon days.

He should have left the first chance he got. He should never have met them at all.

“Wilbur.” The name scratched his throat. He could barely hear himself speak. He tried again, putting as much strength in his words as there was left in him. _“Wilbur_. Let him go.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Philza raise his head from his silent seat in the corner. He had not said a word since his arrival, not even as they marched back to the tent with Tommy’s dead body between them. For once, Techno was glad for his silence. If he heard Philza’s voice right now, he might just put his trident through the man’s chest.

Techno struggled to his feet when it was clear Wilbur was not listening to him. His legs threatened to collapse under his own weight, and he caught himself on the edge of the planning table, where carved wooden soldiers still stood at attention for a war that was already over. _It’s all over_.

“We need to fix him up, Wilbur,” Techno said, his words coming out ragged.

He staggered towards Wilbur, hand outstretched. Wilbur’s head snapped up at the sudden motion, his eyes wide and furious.

“Get away from us,” he growled, pressing Tommy closer against himself. The movement made Tommy’s head loll to the side, allowing Techno to truly see his face in the candlelight for the first time.

Techno’s breath hitched in his throat. Tommy looked so… peaceful. As if he was simply sleeping. As if any moment now, his eyes would flutter open and he’d grin up at the both of them, easily diffusing the tension as only Tommy could.

 _Wake up,_ Techno begged, prayed, wished. _Please wake up_.

But he never would again.

“You can’t hold him forever,” Techno spat. “For gods’ sake, Wilbur, there’s still a _dagger_ in his chest.”

Wilbur looked down at the still bundle in his arms, noticing the state of his brother for the first time. Absently, mechanically, he reached out to wipe a streak of dirt from Tommy’s cheek. His expression grew incensed as the stubborn soil clung ferociously to his brother’s skin, and Techno feared he might just wipe Tommy’s flesh down to the bone.

“Are you trying to _peel him_?” Techno demanded angrily.

Wilbur looked up at him with a look of unbridled wrath, but did not reply.

With a scoff, Techno took a stray piece of cloth hanging off the table and marched to the tent flaps. He drew them open and leaned out into the rain, catching the cold raindrops with the cloth until it was damp. Cold water slipped down his wrist, but it was a distant feeling, felt by another man, in another time.

When he turned back to them, Wilbur was still clinging to Tommy like a lifeline. 

“Let him go,” Techno ordered.

Wilbur shook his head silently, his shoulders trembling. “I can’t.”

“Wilbur—”

“I said, _I can’t_.”

Techno stomped towards him until he was standing over Wilbur. “Of course you can. It’s easy. Just open your damn arms and put him on the bed.”

Wilbur glared. “It _would_ be easy for you, wouldn’t it?”

Techno narrowed his eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 _Cold._ Everything was cold. Cold in his lungs, cold in his heart, cold in the very depths of his soul—if he still had one. Cold from the rain, cold from the Tommy’s skin, cold from Wilbur’s damning eyes.

Thunder cracked in the distance. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

_It’s easy,_ he’d said. _Just open your damn arms._

Wilbur didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or wail at Techno’s words. There was nothing easy about anything anymore. Every breath left like inhaling broken glass, every thought was a raging shriek. There was blood in his mouth from where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek just to keep himself from screaming. And by gods did he want to scream. He wanted to tear the whole world apart with his bare hands—burn and salt it, leave nothing behind, not even one whisper of what once was. It did not deserve even the memory of Tommy.

“You heard me,” Wilbur hissed at the man standing before him, both of them glowering but not truly seeing each other. “Everything comes easy to you, doesn’t it, _blood god_?”

Techno’s brows drew together in anger. “You don’t get to throw that back in my face. Not tonight. Not after everything I did for you.”

Wilbur’s arms trembled. He looked down at his brother’s sleeping face— _sleeping? Sleeping? He isn’t sleeping. He’s dead. Dead._ With a rattling breath, Wilbur traced the curve of Tommy’s cheek, stopping where it used to dimple when he smiled. And then Wilbur looked down, at where a knife still jutted out of his chest like a violent reminder. Fresh tears stung his eyes, and he tried desperately to blink them away before they could fall. And still a rebel tear found its way down his face, carving his dirty cheek in half.

 _Death_. Such a small word for such a big thing.

Wilbur hadn’t even wanted Tommy on the battlefield in the first place. He had planned to leave Tommy at the castle, where he would be safe behind walls and his own personal army of guards. But Techno—godsdamned Techno—had talked him out of it. 

“Tommy is stronger than you’d like to admit,” Techno had said. “And smarter than anyone gives him credit for. And if you leave him behind, you will not only lose an irreplaceable asset, you will also lose your brother’s love. Don’t stand there and tell me that Tommy will allow you to fight this war without him. What will you do when he inevitably protests? Lock him in his bedroom? Shackle him to the wall? You tried to protect him once before, and look where that got you.”

And so Wilbur had taken his brother to the frontlines, ordered the tailors to make him a uniform that Wilbur would have killed to never see him wear, and then he’d sent his brother—his baby brother, his Tommy—off to the slaughter.

And now he was dead. Dead in the red-and-blue colors of the family that failed him one last time.

 _No_ , the voices hissed, _not your family._

Wilbur met Techno’s eyes once more. “This is your fault.”

And Techno was right, in the end. It was damnably easy for Wilbur to stand, open his arms and place Tommy down on the cot. Before, his body had moved on its own, but this time, every action was deliberate. Deliberately, he shrugged of his torn and bloody coat and put it over Tommy, to keep him warm—if warmth was something dead bodies still felt. Deliberately, he tucked a loose strand of Tommy’s hair behind his ear. Deliberately, Wilbur let his brother go. Deliberately, he turned and faced Technoblade.

Anger, it seemed, was a stronger emotion than sorrow.

Technoblade’s eyes were gleaming in the flickering candlelight. He still held a wet cloth in his hand, but he clutched it so fiercely Wilbur would not be surprised if it was merely shreds by now.

“Be very careful,” Techno drawled, “of what you’re about to say to me, Wilbur.”

“You told me to bring him here.” Wilbur flung the accusation like an arrow from a bow, watching it strike its mark. “And _you_ were their target. We’re all just collateral fucking damage for all the shit you’ve done. The past caught up to you, Technoblade. Why the hell did you have to bring us all down with you?”

Thunder crashed around them like vicious war drums, followed by a flash of lightning that bathed everything in a ghastly glow. Technoblade and Wilbur stared at each other across the flower-strewn gap that grew between them with every word. They were two ghosts in limbo. Twin stars drawn to each other’s collapsing gravities.

They were going to destroy each other tonight.

And Wilbur was going to enjoy every damn minute of it.

“I told you,” Technoblade growled. “I told you I would take care of them, didn’t I? I could have stopped this at the border, but you wanted to play the peaceful dignitary even when the bloody facts were staring you right in the face.”

Wilbur remembered that day clearly—the day the first of the spies’ reports had come in, confirming what the voices had been whispering tauntingly for weeks. Wilbur, as always, had called for Technoblade’s advice. And Technoblade had read the missives once, looked up, and simply said, “I could kill them all.”

Wilbur had flinched. “Techno, that’s not—”

“I could. You know I could.” Technoblade had leaned over his desk, meeting Wilbur’s incredulous stare with hazy eyes. “Just say the word.”

Wilbur had not. They’d argued, like they’d never argued before, like they were arguing now. And Technoblade had left, slamming the doors of Wilbur’s office with such force it rattled the books off his shelves.

And then not even a day later, the Green Army had massacred an entire city at the borders.

Had Technoblade been right then? Was Technoblade right now? Wilbur found it didn’t matter. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to rip and tear. His fury would not discriminate.

“Ah, Technoblade.” Wilbur shook his head ruefully. “Always choosing violence, at every turn.”

Technoblade inhaled slowly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, don’t I?” Wilbur watched Technoblade’s features twist in surprise and grim anticipation, quickly hidden by a veneer of indifference. Did he know what was coming? Did he fear it as much as Wilbur was eager to twist the knife? “Tommy didn’t know about where you go off to on your little nighttime escapades. But I do,” Wilbur finally said, finding a grim sort of delight in the way Techno froze on the spot. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you think I wouldn’t ask questions or _follow_ you?”

“You’re an idiot, Wilbur,” Techno said, his words nothing less than venomous.

Wilbur only smiled in the face of his fury. “Did you at least have fun murdering your way through the woodlands, Techno?”

He’d been seventeen when he found out. In truth, he didn’t even know how he’d arrived at that forest. It was exactly like the first time he’d ever seen Techno leave, all those years ago, when the raging voices had followed him into the darkness and he’d woken up somewhere with no recollection of who he’d gotten there. But all of his confusion had been quickly replaced with fear as he spotted Techno moving between the trees, stalking after something crawling across the forest floor. Or, not something. Some _one_.

Wilbur had pressed himself against the trunk of a tree, his hands clamped over his mouth, barely able to breathe as Techno’s prey begged for his life. And then he’d heard the distinct sound of a sword being freed from its scabbard. One scream, and then a wet thud. That was all, before Wilbur passed out once more. When he awoke, he was in his own bed at the castle, his heart thudding in his chest but completely unharmed. He’d taken a deep breath, glad to brush it all off as a nightmare, before he noticed the single green leaf clutched in his hand.

He’d never spoken of it—until now.

“Go on then,” Wilbur said as Technoblade simply stared at him, breathing heavily. “Tell me you’ve changed. Tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. Tell me you aren’t the same bloodthirsty god from the stories.”

“I expected you, of all people, to understand.” Technoblade’s voice sounded strained, like a taut rope one pull away from unravelling. “You know the voices—they don’t let go. They demand their fill, Wilbur, and sometimes it’s unstoppable. But I’ve been trying so godsdamned _hard_.” There it was. The crack—a hairline fracture slowly fissuring into something more. “If you really were following me, you’d know I haven’t killed anyone for _years_ before today. I stopped. I fought the voices off, even if it took _everything_ from me. You think you got me pegged, Wilbur? All you needed to define me by was you, and Tommy. But go ahead and find other definitions if that will make you happy. Let’s see if I still have anything left in me to care.”

That made Wilbur pause, if only for a second. “Then where have you been going…?”

“Looking for your father,” Technoblade spat, and the words fell between them like a dead weight.

Wilbur turned towards the man in question, but his father had not moved in ages, stuck sitting with his head in his hands, oblivious to the thunderstorm around him. Not one word, not one move. _Of course,_ he thought bitterly, taking in his father’s slumped shoulders and the obsidian wings tucked close around him. _Why would I expect anything different?_ Wilbur wanted to feel angry at him, wanted his vision to go red every time he caught a glimpse of his father’s golden hair in his periphery. But he only had his pity. Wilbur had not seen his father in years, but looking at him now, he didn’t see the cold, distant king of the past. He only saw a pathetic excuse of a man, someone who’d abandoned his sons, who only returned after all the hard decisions had been made. After _Wilbur_ had been forced to make them. He didn’t want to spare a single thought more on the laughable sight of his father sitting leagues away from his Tommy’s body, not even bothering to meet the eyes of the only son he had left.

“That’s right,” Techno said roughly, catching Wilbur’s attention once more. The blood god stood with his fists clenched at his sides, trembling with fury. Wilbur had never seen his eyes so hateful, not even when he was carving his way through the battlefield. Wilbur reveled in it. “I went out, every night, for years, ignoring the voices, ignoring everything, to look for _your_ father. To give him back to you. Because I saw you. Every meal you missed, every hour you spent studying politics instead of sleeping, every time you felt you were choking, I saw it. I was _there_ for it, and it killed me, so I went off to look for someone to help you. I tried telling you I’ve changed. I only bite when my family’s in danger, but you still see me as some sort of rabid dog. And those people I _did_ kill in the forests? They were criminals, Wilbur—”

“As if that changes anything.”

“Tell that to the army you just blew into smithereens!”

“ _You_ set those explosives!”

“And _you_ gave the order. So where does that leave us?”

For a moment, they simply stood there, staring at each other, and catching their breaths. The storm still raged outside, but some bit of it was living inside Wilbur’s chest.

This was the endgame. Wilbur knew they were standing on a precipice—if one of them jumped now, they were lost to each other forever. And so Wilbur leapt.

“Maybe it was better Tommy died before he found out what you are,” he said slowly. Deliberately. “You must be happy. At least now, he’ll never get the chance to know just what sort of _monster_ you truly are—”

Technoblade moved in a flash. Wilbur had anticipated it, but still couldn’t help a gasp of surprise as Techno barreled into him, sending both of them sprawling on the ground. Wilbur’s head cracked against the packed earth, but the sting was a welcome one. Technoblade kneeled over him, his fists curled around the collar of Wilbur’s shirt. Wilbur could feel Technoblade’s anger radiating from him like heat from a raging forest fire, but when he looked into his old tutor’s eyes, he could only see his own wretched smile reflected back at him.

Technoblade pulled one fist back, his entire body trembling.

“Go ahead,” Wilbur said. “Prove me right.”

There was a split second where Wilbur thought Technoblade would simply leave, like Wilbur had always known he would, eventually. And then his fist collided with Wilbur’s face.

There was a sickening crunch and a lancing pain, and Wilbur knew from the amount of warm blood that dripped down the side of his face that Technoblade had broken his nose.

Wilbur leaned back, looking up at Technoblade with wide eyes. Technoblade stared back at him with equal shock, the anger briefly ebbing from his face to reveal a genuine worry.

“I—” Technoblade began, but Wilbur cut him off with a derisive snort.

“That all you got, blood god?” he said, and promptly kicked Technoblade off him.

Technoblade went flying, and crashed against the cot right behind him. Wilbur’s breath caught as he watched the cot tremble, and then collapse.

 _“No!”_ Technoblade reached his arms out, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Tommy’s limp body fell to the floor with a hollow thud.

For a moment, all was quiet. There was only the distant rumble of thunder, so far away now, as Technoblade and Wilbur simply stared at Tommy’s body lying in the dirt before them, like abandoned refuse, like a toy—once-loved, now broken—discarded by a careless toddler’s fickle hands.

He hated himself for it, but his first instinct was to search the room for his father. He met his father’s eyes as the old king slowly rose from his seat, his mouth a thin line of disapproval. _Always disapproval_ , the voices hissed. _Even now. Especially now_.

Wilbur wrenched his gaze away from his father’s, only to be met with Technoblade’s, his pale face a study in grief.

“What the hell did we just do?” Technoblade whispered, almost too quiet to be heard over the pounding rain.

But Wilbur was already rushing to his feet. Before Technoblade could say another word, Wilbur ran.

* * *

“Don’t.”

The warning was soft, but brooked no argument. Techno stopped at the edge of the tent where he’d been readying to chase after Wilbur, turning towards the sound of Philza’s voice.

Philza had gathered Tommy’s body into his arms, but he was looking right at Techno.

“He needs his space,” Phil continued, his blue eyes almost gray in the dim light.

 _How would you know?_ Techno wanted to say, but his gaze fell and caught on Tommy. What was left of his anger evaporated into mist as he took in the state of his br—his pupil. The blood and mud still on his skin and clothes, the dagger still protruding from his small, unbreathing chest. Phil held the boy with infinite gentleness, Tommy’s head nestled against the crook of his arm, Tommy’s cheek pressed against his chest—exactly like how one would hold a newborn babe. Techno wondered when the last time Phil had held Tommy like that—if Tommy even allowed him to over the age of three—and realized it did not really matter. A father’s arms never forgot the shape of a child.

Not that Techno knew anything about being a father. Or being a son.

Techno nodded begrudgingly at Philza. “And we need to clean Tommy.”

Phil looked down at the body in his arms, his expression cloudy. “I suppose we should.”

They moved quietly, carefully. Techno grabbed the cloth he’d dropped during his tussle with Wilbur and went to wet it in the rain again, lingering in the cold to let the raindrops wash away the blood on his knuckles. Wilbur’s blood. His stomach tightened as bloodstained water dripped from his hands, but in a few moments, his hands were clean once more. When he turned back to Tommy and Phil, he’d found that Phil had taken the knife from Tommy’s chest.

“Is this yours?” Phil asked bitterly, running his hand over the knife’s carved handle.

“You should know,” Techno said. “You gave it to me.”

Phil looked up in surprise. Techno could only shrug, unsure of where they stood now with each other.

“It was a long time ago,” Techno said. “You gave me a whole set.”

“During the—”

“Yes,” Techno cut him off. “During that time.”

For the first time, Phil seemed to look his age: ancient and weathered by his endless years. Techno could see him remembering it all: their empire of blood and glory, broken only by silent months of warm companionship. It seemed their bodies recalled just as much as their minds did, because they slipped easily into their grim work, side-by-side, never needing to speak a single word. As Phil combed the dirt out of Tommy’s hair, Techno scrubbed at the stains on his arms and the stubborn one of his cheek. And when Techno’s breathing began to slow at the sight of the jagged wound on Tommy’s chest, Phil silently worked Tommy out of his torn shirt and into a fresh one that did not bear the scars of their battle.

Then they stepped back, surveying their work. Tommy was polished. Tommy was spotless.

Tommy was dead.

Of all the things that could have broken him, Techno didn’t understand why it had to be the sight of Tommy actually looking _clean_. He’d held it together when they were walking back to camp, he’d held it together when Wilbur pinned him with accusations that simply echoed what the voices had been saying for years. _Monster, monster, monster_. He’d killed a thousand men, seen allies eviscerated and witnessed the fall of kingdoms. He’d seen Philza kneel. He’d seen the world end a hundred times over and watched its people rebuild it over and over while he stood back, helpless, wanting to scream at them for being foolish but also yearning, with all his might, to be able to love something enough to also love what grew from its ruins.

And looking at Tommy’s peaceful face was what finally, _finally_ , made Technoblade—emperor of ice, blood god, destroyer of worlds—cry.

He stood over Tommy’s body, and let the tears fall. He felt himself come undone with grief and guilt, misery and madness. And all at once he understood. He understood the anguish in the war god’s eyes. He understood the pain of the widows and orphans he’d left in his wake. He understood the agony of an entire world brought to its knees before a merciless god—and he felt it all.

A hand closed around his trembling shoulder.

“Techno.” Philza’s voice was a distant thing. “We need to talk.”

“Talk?” Techno whirled around, shrugging Philza’s hand off his shoulder. The other god simply backed away, giving Techno his space. Techno hated that almost as much as the blank look on Philza’s face. “What is there to talk about?”

“About—” Philza swallowed, leaning against the table as if he could not bear his own weight any longer. “About why I left.”

“Your son is dead.” The words tasted like ash on his tongue. “His corpse is _right in front of you_ , and you want to talk about yourself?”

Philza flinched, but that was the extent of his reaction. “This is important. You have to understand—”

_“What is there left for me to understand?”_

“It’s not over.” Philza’s eyes bore through him. “The war isn’t over.”

Techno exhaled heavily. “Don’t screw with me right now. I’m done. I’m _finished_.”

“Would it help,” Philza said slowly, “if I told you the leader of the Green Army—its general, its ruler, whatever—is still out there?”

Techno blinked, hot tears still stinging his eyes. _“What?”_

Philza’s lips drew into a thin line—a habit Techno recognized from their empire days as something Philza did when he was trying not to scream. “I left for a thousand different reasons, Techno. When my—when _she_ died, I just knew. Though the pain of losing her was more than I could bear, I knew something worse would come. And it did come—sooner than I expected, but it came.” He glanced at Tommy, his expression undecipherable. “Her death destroyed me. But I knew the day I lost my sons would be the day I destroyed the world.” His eyes slid to Techno. “You understand that, I think.”

“I do.” Technoblade did not want to agree with him on anything, but there was no other explanation for the voices slowly getting louder and louder inside his head. He was beginning to lose himself. He already had, if he’d hurt Wilbur like that. It had only been a few hours. There was no telling what he could do—what he would become—later. He stared at Philza, for once realizing that the Angel of Death might be called that for a reason.

“We gods are different. Our grief is infinite, but so is our power.” Philza looked down at his hands. “No being should have both. Grief, in a mortal, already does so much fucking damage. In us, it will be a thousand times worse. So I did the only thing I felt could save me—save everyone—from my grief.” Blue eyes found red. “Have you heard of the Green God, Technoblade?”

Techno found himself nodding. The Green God. An infamous force, but a mystery to all. Technoblade had found the name carved into trees older than civilization, and written into the mortals’ holy texts.

Philza smiled. “The Green God could bring him back.”

The rest of the world fell away.

And in its place, hope.

“That’s why…” A single tear—the last of its kind, the last Techno could give—fell down Techno’s cheek, warm and light. “That’s why you aren’t breaking down right now.”

“Oh.” Philza gave him a sad smile. “Believe me, old friend, I am completely losing it. I just had more practice at hiding it than you. Knowing I can revive my son doesn’t do shit for the pain of seeing him die in the first place.”

“And your wife…?”

That sobered Philza quickly. “I don’t know. The texts I read—and there were millions—had conflicting stories about the Green God’s rules. What he can and can’t do. They all agree he’s powerful. Even more powerful than you and me combined, I reckon. But he can bring back Tommy, and right now that’s the only thing that matters.”

Techno was quiet for a moment, simply processing the weight of Philza’s revelation.

Then he said, “Couldn’t you have said all that _before_ I broke Wilbur’s face?”

Philza grimaced. “I’m sorry. I was… well, losing it, as I said. You know me.”

Techno nodded. “I do know you. Always gone in the aftermath, aren’t you?”

“Techno—”

“You could have stayed to explain,” Techno said quietly. “Or you could have taken me with you.”

They both knew he wasn’t talking about just Tommy anymore.

Philza shook his head sadly. “What gave me the strength to leave the night my wife died, Techno, was the knowledge that you were staying behind. I’d seen what you were becoming to the boys, and what the boys were becoming to you. I knew I could leave, because they had you.”

“But who did _I_ have, Phil?” Techno demanded.

Philza’s eyes widened. “Techno, that’s—”

“ _Me and you_ ,” Techno went on, not hearing anything beyond the pounding of his own heart. “That’s what you said. So where were you when I was crashing through an entire library’s worth of books on history and politics and _godsdamned etiquette_ just to fit in in a life I never asked for? Where were you when Tommy was waking up from nightmares almost every night, or when Wilbur was pulling his hair out over being king at _sixteen_? Where were you when the voices got so loud for the both of us that we had to take turns reminding each other to breathe?”

There was a sharp crack, startling both Techno and Philza. They looked down at that table Philza had been leaning on, only to find a chunk of it had broken clean off in Philza’s hand.

“Oh.” Philza stared uncomprehendingly at the cracked pieces in his hand. “That’s—” He looked helplessly at Techno. “What do I do now?”

Technoblade crossed his arms. “Apologize, for one thing.”

“For the table or for leaving?” At Technoblade’s unimpressed look, Philza winced. “Sorry. That was… my awful attempt at humor, I suppose.” He took a deep breath, dropping the broken pieces from his hand. “I know I have a lot to be sorry for,” he began.

Techno sighed. “There’s going to a _‘but’_ now, isn’t there?”

“But,” Philza continued, meeting Techno’s disappointed stare head-on, something close to sadness flickering over his face, “we have the rest of our lives for my atonement. I will apologize to you every minute of every day, once this is all over. I will never stop trying to make it up to you, but it will have to wait once we’re safe. Once we’re _all_ home.” He glanced pointedly at Tommy, then back at Techno. “Like I said, this war isn’t over. The Green God is still out there. This was simply his invitation.”

“An _invitation_?” Techno thought about the thousands of corpses—enemy and ally—buried underneath the rubble of exploded mountains. His trident and whip, still slick with blood. What had the war god said? _I’m merely a pawn in this game_. “Is this all a joke to him?”

Philza nodded tightly. “He’s more god than the both of us.”

“You calling me a mortal, Philza?”

“That depends.” Philza smiled gently. “Do you still think it’s an insult?”

Techno did not reply. Instead, he turned towards the front of tent, to the rain still raging outside.

“Someone needs to find Wilbur.”

* * *

Philza found him at the very edge of the hill, kneeling over a cluster of blue flowers, the rain pouring over his shoulders. He seemed numb to the cold—to everything entirely—but when Philza spread his wings over him, keeping the downpour away, his dark eyes flickered to his father, just for a second. Just for a heartbeat. But it was acknowledgement, which was more than Phil could ever hope to deserve.

Techno’s words echoed in his head, each syllable leaving bleeding wounds that Phil would never show. Techno had already suffered so much. Too much. Phil would rather die than add to that. Whatever apology he could come up with now would be meaningless—a small, pathetic scratch against an iceberg of his own making. Actions, after all, spoke louder than words, and Philza was nothing if not a man of action. _King at sixteen_ , Techno had said, as if it was the worst thing to be.

Now, looking down at his son, Philza knew it to be true.

Wilbur was holding his own hand in his lap. In the dark, Phil could just barely make out a jagged, barely-healed scar on his palm. He wanted to ask a million things at once— _are you okay who did that what happened will you ever forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me—_ but he held his silence, even if it was the second-most painful thing he had ever done.

He waited.

And waited.

He would wait until the world ended, if that was what it took.

And then, eventually, Wilbur spoke. “It really was meant to be.”

“I’m sorry?” Phil asked gently.

“Yeah.” Wilbur sighed heavily. “You should be.”

“Wil—”

“Why didn’t you visit?” Wilbur asked suddenly. Overhead, lightning arched across the midnight sky, and Phil finally allowed himself to look— _really_ look—at his son. His jaw was sharper, his shoulders broader, but underneath the blood and grime and the haunted eyes, it was still his boy. His Wilbur, terrified of the dark. “Or even write a letter? Anything?”

Philza’s heart shattered. “Because if I did, if I allowed myself that foot in the door, I knew I wouldn’t have had the courage to leave again.”

“And did you ever think of us?”

“Of course. Every second of every day.”

“I never thought of you,” Wilbur said. “Or, at least, I tried not to. It was hard. I saw you everywhere. In the paintings, in the garden, down every hallway. In Tommy’s eyes. In Techno’s words.” He closed his scarred hand, so tightly that the wound opened once more, spilling blood onto the grass. “But what’s strange is that I never saw you in me.”

Thunder echoed over the valley, but Philza barely heard it. “I think that’s a good thing, Wilbur.”

“No.” Wilbur gave a rueful shake of his head. “No, it’s not. I’m tired of pretending it is. I’m tired of everything. I wish I could be just like you and leave it all behind without looking back.”

That was enough. Philza went and kneeled before Wilbur, his hands finding Wilbur’s shoulders. Wilbur’s expression crumpled, and Philza knew it wasn’t just rain dripping down his cheeks.

“Leaving you and Tommy,” Philza said, “almost killed me, Wilbur. But I knew I had to, to spare you from exactly this.” He shook him slightly, desperately, just to get any sort of emotion behind those cold brown eyes. “We can bring him back, Wilbur. This isn’t the end.”

He told Wilbur of his plans, of the years he’d spent hunting down every lead and every whisper of the Green God who could rewrite history, rewind death itself.

“I know,” Philza said. “I know this doesn’t absolve me of the things I’ve done—leaving you, when your mother had just… I thought I was protecting you from my world, but I should’ve understood earlier. You _are_ my world. You and Techno and Tommy. And after this, after the Green God gives us your brother back, we can go home together. And you can be Prince Wilbur again, if you want. Or we could go somewhere else, find a place nobody knows our names and just _be_.”

For a while, Wilbur was silent again.

 _Speak,_ Philza begged. _Please talk to me._

At last, Wilbur said, “You know, children don’t really care about _why_ their parents leave. They only care that they _did_. It’s a blessing, I suppose, that I never truly was a child, even when I was young.” He nodded once, almost to himself. “And how sure are you that the Green God will give us anything? After all he’s done?”

“Because I’ll make him,” the Angel of Death vowed.

Wilbur scoffed. “Right. Techno told me about you, you know. Well, I guess _you_ told me about Techno first, with your bedtime stories. Every time I prayed to the gods, I’ve only ever been praying to you. I’m not much of a pious man now.” Wilbur gave him a ghost of a smile. “But I suppose faith is stronger when tested, right?”

Before Philza could say anything, Wilbur threw his arms around his father, pulling him into an embrace. Philza stilled, a frozen, unmoving statue in his son’s arms. And then he cracked. He leaned into Wilbur, his own arms going around Wilbur and pulling him close. He still remembered the last time Wilbur had allowed himself to be hugged like this by his father. He was older now, and heavier, but that would never matter. Phil had never forgotten his initial hesitation at holding Tommy; that shame would follow him forever. But after that, he’d promised to hold his sons for as long as they would let him. And he had sworn never to be the first one to let go.

Phil had spent nine years, ten months, three days and sixteen hours away from his eldest son. And now, in the rain and in the dark where nobody could see him cry, he was finally home.

Wilbur buried his face in his father’s shoulder, clinging on for dear life. “This isn’t forgiveness,” he whispered.

“I know,” Philza whispered back.

“And you have a hell of a lot more explaining to do.”

“I know.”

“And when we get Tommy back, you’ll have to bend over backwards to appease him. That boy holds grudges longer than I do.”

“I know, Wilbur, I know.”

Phil felt Wilbur nod against him. “Then that’s where we’ll start.”

* * *

When they returned, Technoblade was waiting at the mouth of their tent, the light behind him making him barely more than a shadow. In his left hand was a roll of bandages ready for Wilbur’s nose. Wilbur found himself grinning, a quip already on his tongue, but was silenced as Techno crossed into the rain and wrapped Wilbur in his arms. Wilbur sunk wordlessly into the god’s embrace, and both of them were finally warm.

Forgiveness came easily with brothers, after all.

The Angel of Death looked on quietly. He would not be welcome for this moment, not when there was too much between the three of them still, but he knew someday, he would be again. One day, the four of them would be together in a home full of sunlight. Looking forward to that distant time, Philza finally felt peace.

Inside the tent, a golden-haired prince slept on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp folks! i know this chapter was just a lot of talking but dont worry! that just means all action has been stored for the next (and last!) chapter. a lot of loose ends have been tied and that means its no holds barred from here on out >:] thank you all so much for your comments. i read them over and over whenever i need a push and i truly appreciate all of you! thanks for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank for reading! Feel free to give me a follow on twitter @thcscus and tell me what you think <3


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